Kyuuketsuki
by Zorknot
Summary: The bamboo poles in the Jusenkyo springs are wards that have been holding the vampiric spirits at bay for fifty years. They've fallen.
1. Twilight at Jusenkyo

Kyuuketsuki  
(Vampire)  
A Ranma1/2 fanfiction by Zorknot (W. Brad Robinson)  
  
DISCLAIMER: Jusenkyo and many the characters   
portrayed here are the intellectual property of   
Rumiko Takahashi, Kitty films, and Shogakukan.   
  
NOTES: This fic is pretty dark and has some rather   
violent scenes. It is a continuation of sorts,   
starting a few days after the last volume of the   
manga. Some of the Chinese names I use are different   
from convention. Here are the names as they appear in   
cannon and how they will appear here. Real Chinese would  
probably never have names such as these, but I felt they  
needed to be changed for this fic.  
  
Jusenkyo Guide- Gurei Pu  
Plum- Pei Lum   
Saffron- Sa Furan  
Cologne- Ko Lon  
Shampoo- Shan Pu  
Village of Amazons- Nyuuchezutswun  
  
  
PREREADERS:I would like to thank the following people   
for helping me with this chapter. Any errors are   
purely my own of course.  
  
KpJam  
Akraen  
Nightman  
Nemesis Zero  
Edward Simmons  
Dracos  
  
Prologue: Twilight at Jusenkyo  
  
~~~~~[BEGIN]~~~~~  
  
A cold wind blew over the Jusenkyo springs, causing   
Gurei Pu to shiver. The springs were actually more of   
a large, if shallow lake now. It had been nearly a   
month since Ranma had defeated Sa Furan and caused the   
springs to flood, and they still showed no signs of   
receding. Gurei did not want to be here. It was cold   
and wet and dull. He wished more than ever that he   
could go back to his home in the village, where it   
was warm and bright, where his wife and daughter would   
be waiting, but until the water drained away and the   
individual springs were once again discernable, that   
was just a far off dream. As the Jusenkyo Guide this   
was probably the most important task he would have to   
perform.   
  
Gurei wondered how the Tendos and Saotomes were   
doing in Japan. He wondered what sort of chaos the   
barrel of Nannichuan he sent to them had caused. He   
knew that curing the curse was nigh impossible, that   
the spirits of the springs would not allow themselves   
to cancel each other out willingly, but the Guide had   
always been an optimist. He hoped against probability   
that Ranma had been able to cure himself. He   
certainly deserved it. Gurei picked up a small stone   
and threw it into the lake. It skipped seven times   
before plunking into the water above Shounichuan, the   
spring of drowned elephant. Gurei sighed. He actually   
hoped the marriage didn't happen...that somehow it   
was called off. If Akane and Ranma were married, then   
things would be that much worse...because Akane would   
eventually have to return to Jusenkyo. She had her   
own spring...her own tragic story.  
  
The Akanenichuan was one of the few springs that   
did not have a bamboo pole sticking out of it. The   
poles were not ordinary. They were infused with ki   
and protected from the weathering of nature by arcane   
magic, sigils burned into their bases before they   
were placed in the earth. Akane's spring would   
need a pole soon. The elders were already busy making   
one.  
  
There were times when the Guide hated the elders.   
Sometimes he even hated the whole village. It was his   
duty to stay by Jusenkyo, alone, guarding the springs   
and laying witness to tragedy after tragedy simply   
because he inherited a unique immunity to the springs   
from his father, a man he had barely even met. Even   
now, as he approached old age, had learned to respect   
Jusenkyo and its rich history, and had become a   
father himself, he felt the old resentment like a   
heavy acidity in his stomach. Sometimes he felt like   
he too was one of the accursed spirits of Jusenkyo,   
tied to it his whole life, only able to live   
vicariously through the people that visited him.   
Sometimes, the Guide thought that if he had to spend   
an eternity like this and was suddenly set free, he'd   
go on a murderous rampage too.   
  
That's what would happen if the poles fell. The   
spirits, no longer having anything tying them to the   
spring, would take over the bodies of those they had   
cursed, and wreak havoc upon the living world. There   
were one or two benevolent spirits, the spirit of   
Sounichuan, the spring of drowned priest, being   
notable among them, but even these spirits had a dark   
nature. Their souls still belonged to the demon   
imprisoned in the source of Jusenkyo's waters.   
However good their intentions, their actions would   
always serve evil.   
  
The methods of protecting the poles had improved   
over the centuries, but that didn't mean there   
couldn't be mistakes. Although magic found ways   
around almost every rule of nature, it could not ever   
completely escape one most important physical law,   
the law of entropy.   
  
The poles HAD fallen before, and if they were going   
to fall again, now, when the springs were flooded and   
indistinct, would be the time. Gurei kept watching   
the springs, despite the loneliness and boredom. He   
watched them for the village, for the Jusenkyo cursed   
people of Nerima, whom he counted among his friends,   
but most of all he watched the poles for his daughter,   
Pei Lum.   
  
Pei got herself cursed because she wanted to follow   
in her father's footsteps. She walked right into   
Nyannichuan, hoping that she, like her father would   
be immune. She was not. For the most part, Pei's   
curse wasn't much of a curse at all, but if the poles   
fell...  
  
Gurei didn't want to think about it. He took his   
long, wooden pipe out of his shirt pocket along with   
some tobacco, filled the pipe, lit it with a match,   
and inhaled slowly. Another cold wind passed through   
him and he thought seriously about starting a fire.   
Fall was definitely coming on strong this year. He   
blew the smoke out of his mouth forming an "o" in the   
air in front of him. Maybe Pei would visit him   
tomorrow. That would be nice...  
  
When the first pole fell, Gurei thought he was   
seeing things. There was no sound. No reason to see   
it at all except that he happened to be looking   
through his smoke ring at the time. The pole just   
leaned slowly to the left until the bottom bobbed up   
with an eerie grace and the entire pole was floating   
horizontally on the surface of the water. It was   
starting to get dark, and since it had already been   
overcast to begin with, Gurei blinked, rubbed his   
eyes and blinked again hoping it was just his   
imagination running on worry.  
  
It was not.  
  
The second pole was unmistakable. It fell quickly,   
almost as if cut from underneath. It splooshed into   
the water and bobbed up and down with Gurei's heart.   
Gurei threw his pipe to the ground and leapt into the   
water. He had to put the poles back into the earth   
before...  
  
Gurei heard another splash and saw another pole go   
down right next to him. There wasn't time to think...   
he angled himself over to the newly dropped pole and   
grabbed it. The water here was only chest high. He   
stood up, his shoes sinking in the soft mud. He   
raised the pole into the air and shoved it into the   
ground as far as he could. He read the marking on the   
pole. This was one of the four poles that bound the   
spirit of Rounichuan, the spring of drowned wolf.   
Gurei remembered the spirit's name...Ran Binrui.   
  
Binrui was turned into a wolf by a powerful   
sorcerer two thousand, seven hundred years ago. In   
order to once again regain human form and express his   
love to the sorcerer's daughter, Binrui drowned   
himself in the cursed waters of Jusenkyo, ceding his   
very soul to the demon that was the source of   
Jusenkyo's magic. Despite his originally noble ideals,   
Binrui had slaughtered hundreds in Europe a thousand   
years later. Many others he afflicted with the wolf   
curse, making them his slaves. He was generous to his   
minions. He allowed them their own lives for as long   
as the moon was not full. On nights when it was,   
however they were to viciously hunt down any human   
they saw. Binrui was so successful, his minions so   
commonplace, they gained their own name... werewolves.   
He had finally been forced back to the springs almost   
one hundred fifty years ago.   
  
Gurei recalled all of this in an instant as he held   
the pole. "Ran Binrui, spirit of the wolf. You have   
killed many for your love. Kill no more. Rest in this   
place and be content. You have done enough. Nomfir   
ardfarl ben singrei, srat por lavat!" A red glow   
surrounded the pole as the incantation activated the   
sigils. The pole sank a few inches deeper into the   
ground. The pole was back in place.   
  
Gurei turned to go after the first two poles, when   
suddenly he felt a strong current in the water   
through his clothing. He looked back.   
  
Suddenly, all four poles of Rounichuan shot up into   
the air, leaving a trail of water before falling back   
down into the lake. For a moment, there was silence,   
and then, like dominoes, the other poles began to   
fall one after the other.   
  
Gurei stood in the ice cold water, shocked. This   
wasn't simply the result of the enchantments wearing   
down, there was something MAKING the poles come down.   
Jusenkyo...was waking up.   
  
There was no way Gurei could stop this. The village   
had to be warned. He swam through the numbingly cold   
water to the shore. Once there, Gurei ran as fast as   
he could to his makeshift stable next to his shack.   
The Amazons had given him a horse after the springs   
flooded. It was a pure breed Arabian horse, its color   
a brilliant copper. Gurei had accepted the gift   
gratefully, even though he knew they had given it to   
him purely out of fear that something might happen to   
the springs. It was a good horse. He fed it and rode   
it often. He found he enjoyed riding through the low   
grade paths in the mountains. They hadn't told him   
the horse's name so he named it Ranma. It was his   
daughter's idea.  
  
Ranma was rearing up on his back legs, his eyes   
wide. He whinnied in fear at something that only he   
could detect at the moment. Gurei knew what it was.   
What they were. They hadn't escaped yet, the spirits   
moved slow, blown by the light wind. Their pace would   
quicken soon though. Gurei could almost feel their   
hatred on his back. "Calm down, boy. Shhh. We have a   
difficult journey to make." Gurei stroked the horse's   
neck as slowly and calmly as possible. Gradually, Ranma   
calmed down enough for Gurei to lead him out of the   
stable. Gurei didn't have enough time to prepare the   
saddle. He would have to ride bare back.   
  
In his youth, Gurei would have leapt on the horse's   
back without hesitation. He no longer had his youth,   
but he was going to have to make it onto the horse   
quickly if he was going to have any opportunity of   
getting to the village in time. He closed his eyes,   
took a deep breath and jumped.   
  
Miraculously he made it onto Ranma's back. Whereupon   
the horse ran off in the direction of the village   
without any direction from Gurei. The Amazons trained   
him well.   
  
Gurei held tight to Ranma's body as he galloped   
through the darkening woods. It would be so easy to   
slip, to fall, to be injured and not be able warn   
them. Each beat of hoof against ground was a   
challenge against Gurei's balance, strength and   
stamina. After ten minutes, nearly all three of those   
had been depleted.   
  
Gurei wasn't aware that he was crying until he felt   
the wind blow against the tracks of tears on his face.   
He was thinking of his few friends in the village, of   
the Saotomes, of the other cursed Nerimans, of his   
wife and daughter. They were the only ones he cared   
about...and except for Mei, his wife, they all had   
Jusenkyo curses. Not one of them would escape   
unharmed, and it was very likely...they would all die.   
But... he had to warn the village. He had to find his   
family. He had to try.  
  
An eternity and five minutes later Ranma galloped   
to the front gate of Nyuuchezutswun. The two Amazon guards   
crossed their halberds in front of him. "What is   
your business, Guide."  
  
"JUSENKYO!" The guide gasped. "THE WARDS....   
FALLEN!"  
  
Eyes widened, the guards parted to let him pass   
without another word. The one on the right ran to   
the watchtower that stood some ten meters down the   
wooden palisade.   
  
Soon there was a low dirge emanating from the tower   
that shook Gurei's insides. Shortly afterward, it was   
answered by another and then a third and forth. It   
seemed almost as though the ground itself were   
shaking. Gurei nodded. The alarm had been raised. Now   
he had to find his family.  
  
Gurei rested just a moment more, steeling himself   
against the mounting fatigue and pain, before   
galloping through the village paths past small shacks   
and huts, to his family's home. It was a modest shack,   
built from mud and small trees from the forest. Its   
roof was thatched from the long sturdy grasses of the   
meadow west of the village, and jutting out of it was   
a chimney made of the stones from the mountains.   
Looking at his home away from Jusenkyo, Gurei felt   
the weight of what was happening hit him with greater   
force. Here was everything that was good about the   
Amazons. Everything important that they had   
accomplished was summed up in this fragile edifice.   
  
It all amounted to nothing.  
  
Any one of the escaped spirits could obliterate it   
with a thought once they found a host...and there   
were plenty viable hosts in Nyuuchezutswun. At least one   
in every twenty villagers bore curses from Jusenkyo.   
  
For all their knowledge, for all their prowess in   
martial arts, the Amazons were weak. The rest of the   
world progressed while the "great" Amazon nation   
stagnated, led by antiquated old fools who behaved   
like children — spoiled brats with dangerous toys.   
  
Gurei shivered as a sharp breeze cut through his   
damp clothing. He almost dismounted, the need to see   
his family pressing on him greatly, but he stopped   
himself. No inviting smoke issued from the chimney.   
The square window below the roof was dark. The house   
was empty. A husk.   
  
For a crazed moment, Gurei wished that he himself   
had the power to blow the building away into rubble.   
The only importance the shack ever held for him was   
its promise of holding his wife and daughter, and it   
had broken that promise...just as the Amazons had   
done countless times. But it wasn't the house or even   
the Amazons that deserved his rage. The spirits of   
Jusenkyo had always been held in a secure vault of   
evils. They were LET out, Gurei was sure of it. He   
did not know who had played Pandora, and he did not   
know where his family was, but he knew that this   
information, and probably the culprit herself, would   
be found among the Elders.   
  
The Jusenkyo guide wasn't as young as he once was.   
He was out of shape, and in pain from all that he had   
done in such a small time, but somehow he would find   
his family, and make the one responsible pay for her   
crimes. A rational voice within Gurei told him this   
was impossible—a foolish dream, but he paid it no   
mind. Driven more by hate now than duty or even love,   
Gurei turned Ranma around and rode deeper into   
Nyuuchezutswun, toward the House of Elders.  
  
The village was already a bedlam of activity. People   
were boarding up windows and sticking plugs in their   
chimneys even as they shivered in the growing cold.   
Some families even started to dig ditches around   
their homes to fill with rain water. While normal   
water could not hurt the spirits, it did make them   
sluggish if it was in contact with their hosts.   
Meanwhile many of the warriors passed out vials of   
purified Jusenkyo water to the villagers swarming   
around them. This water could actually hurt the   
spirits, and if it splashed one of the chakras of the   
host's body (the top of the head, the forehead, the   
neck heart, stomach, or groin), it could drive the   
spirit out for a time. It was the best defense the   
villagers had. Unfortunately, it appeared the warriors   
were only giving vials out   
to the women.  
  
Rage once again welled up in the Guide as he   
witnessed this pettiness in the face of disaster, but   
there was nothing he could do. Grimacing, Gurei   
looked forward and guided Ranma through the chaos as   
quickly as possible. The way was clear again for a   
while until he reached the House of Elders. Here in   
the inconstant light of torches and small bonfires   
warriors and healers were placating the villagers who,   
like Gurei himself, wanted to get inside.   
  
Using his position on horseback to plow slowly   
through the crowd, Gurei reached the main entrance of   
the House of Elders. The building was very large to   
be made without machines. The front entrance was   
a stone archway that led to the main hall of the   
building. Rooms were situated along the perimeter of   
the hall, ten along the length, and seven along the   
width. The building was three stories high and each   
room on the upper levels opened to a balcony   
overlooking the hall. The Hall itself had a large   
fireplace on one end and a raised lectern on the   
other. It was possible to have nearly half the   
village attend a meeting in the House of Elders   
comfortably, and since only women were allowed to   
attend village meetings, this was more than enough   
space. four of the seven elders that ruled the   
Nyuuchezutswun lived in the House of Elders,   
along with decorated warriors, healers, and   
historians.  
  
One of these decorated warriors stepped to the side   
of Ranma and brought twin halberds to Gurei's neck in   
a scissor action that would have been physically   
impossible were it not for the woman's mastery of ki.   
The warrior's name was Lin. Gurei knew her by reputation   
only. She had led the Amazons against the Musk in a minor   
skirmish that might have turned into a war if her   
victory hadn't been so complete. "How is it that a male   
rides such a steed?" she asked with a sneer, "And why   
would such a creature seek to enter the House of Elders?"  
  
Gurei kept as little of his anger at Lin's arrogance   
from showing as he could. "I am the Jusenkyo Guide,   
Gurei Pu. It is my duty to convey what information I   
have concerning the springs to the elders. I would   
perform my duty now if your excellence would permit."  
  
Lin released Gurei, spinning both halberds   
effortlessly to her side. It would be ungainly, even   
for one of Lin's skill to use two halberds in a   
serious battle. Lin's object however was to keep   
unskilled villagers out of the House, and for this,   
the ability to use both weapons simultaneously with   
such ease was an impressive deterrent. "I recognize   
your position, Guide, but you cannot speak with the   
elders at this time." Lin's eyes were fierce in the   
torchlight.  
  
"It's important that I speak with one of them! Why   
do you deny me this?" Even though it was considered   
uncouth for a man to talk back to a woman,   
particularly one of Lin's stature, it was also true,   
Gurei found, that if he acted as if he expected   
respect, then he was more likely to receive it.  
  
The proud Amazon murmured, her lips barely moving, "I   
do not deny you anything...but you cannot speak   
with the elders." Lin's eyes wavered just a fraction.   
  
Gurei nodded. Lin was putting on a show. There was   
something going on, and Gurei was too visible for the   
woman to be candid with him. Gurei pushed back   
through the crowd and guided Ranma to the shadows of   
the side of the building. Unbeknownst to most of the   
villagers, the House of Elders had several secret   
entrances, one of which was close to where Gurei was   
now. Sliding off Ranma, Gurei staggered in the dark   
until he found a ring of stones that in better light   
would appear to be site for a bonfire. Moving the   
west-most stone out of the ring however revealed a   
handle. Gurei pulled up on this and the entire ring   
lifted, revealing a passageway underneath. Gurei,   
alternately sore and numb from his ride through the   
cold night in wet clothing, carefully climbed down   
the wooden rungs of the ladder embedded in the wall.   
When he reached the floor he heard the sound of a   
blade being unsheathed and directly afterwards felt   
the cool shock of metal against his throat.   
  
"State your name, intruder."  
  
"Gurei Pu, Guide of Jusenkyo. I need to give the   
elders information but I was told they could not   
speak with me."  
  
Gurei heard the guard sigh as the blade left his   
neck. She lit her torch allowing Gurei to see her   
face. Moisture gleamed in twin tracks down her cheeks.   
She looked down at her feet. "It's true, they cannot   
speak with you," her head rose and her eyes met   
Gurei's, "they're all dead."  
  
Gurei eyes widened in shock "No. It can't be! The   
spirits cannot have traveled so quickly!"  
  
The young guard shook her head. "I'm a healer, I'm supposed   
to be able to prevent death...but...they didn't just   
die, they...The entire hall is covered in blood!"  
  
Gurei had always suspected, but this proved it. The   
Elders had been drinking Jusenkyo water to stay alive.   
Even as they continued to age and shrivel, as long as   
they drank the ki infused waters of the cursed   
springs, they would maintain their health. Physical   
attacks, even the emotion-based attacks of chi would   
not affect them anymore than usual. But the spirits   
attacked using ki, soul energy. Someone in the House   
had to have been cursed and when they attacked the   
elders must have been so saturated with ki that even   
the slightest influx of the energy blew them apart.   
"The spirit is still in the room?"  
  
"Yes. The walls of the House are protected against   
spirits; so those that escaped decided to lock the   
door and see if what was supposed to keep a spirit   
out, would keep it in."  
  
"What did you see?"  
  
"I...it was just the standard weekly meeting at   
first. Then Elder Pao Da... She got up in front of   
everyone and started yelling that we were becoming   
weak, that we needed to gain more power. She talked   
about Sister Shan Pu and how she was the best of the   
new generation and was defeated by a mere male..."  
  
Pao had always been the strongest speaker against   
equality of the sexes. In fact, she normally seemed   
adverse to discussion of any change at all in the   
traditional system. That she would do such a thing   
was not completely unnatural, but still shocking.   
"She couldn't have been serious. Ranma defeated even   
Sa Furan!"   
  
"Yes and the council had decided shortly afterwards   
that Ranma was to be considered female, despite being   
born male. Elder Pao Da must have gone insane. She   
started speaking in some strange language, and then   
there was this white owl that she brought out of a   
wooden cage that she..."  
  
"Wait, an owl?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I see." Gurei had still been thinking that somehow   
one of the elders had gotten cursed. This was worse.   
  
"What is it?"  
  
Gurei took a breath."The owl is her familiar. Pao   
is now a witch." Gurei grabbed the young healer's   
shoulders. "You must listen to me. She is not of the   
walking dead, she can leave that building whenever   
she wishes, which means she has been preparing   
something. You have to find someone to help you...Lin   
maybe. Find the owl. This is what you must attack.   
The owl is Pao's link to the spirit of Kyounichuan.   
  
"Sha Resu... Remember that name.   
  
"Sha had been one of the leaders of the uprising   
against the sorcerers one thousand, seven hundred   
fifty years ago. He was captured and tortured, but he   
would not reveal the names of his comrades. For his   
punishment he was turned into an owl. He drowned   
himself in Jusenkyo, exchanging his soul for the   
opportunity to crush the sorcerers. He succeeded. His   
spirit was then imprisoned in the waters of Jusenkyo,   
his will corrupted over the ages until he found no   
fault in killing thousands.   
  
"He will use illusion and trickery. Remind him of   
his past. That may distract him long enough for you   
to kill the owl. Use wood or something else once   
living to pierce the creature's heart. Pao will die   
as well once you do this." Gurei released the healer   
and turned back toward the wooden ladder.  
  
"You are leaving?"  
  
"Yes. I must find my family." Gurei spoke without   
turning around.  
  
"Oh! By the Goddess! I thought you knew!"  
  
"What?" Gurei asked still looking ahead. He had the   
feeling the coming news would not be pleasant.  
  
"Your wife and daughter, they moved into Elder Ko   
Lon's house for the fall!"  
  
Gurei was silent for a moment. "What is your name?"   
he asked finally, turning his head toward the healer.  
  
"Li San"  
  
"Thank you, Li San... I had almost lost hope." Gurei   
started up the ladder.  
  
"But..."  
  
"Remember," Gurei paused, "Sha Resu. The man-hater   
depends on that man." With that, Gurei climbed out of   
the hole, clambered onto Ranma and set off toward   
Elder Ko Lon's house.   
  
In the woods.  
  
Back toward Jusenkyo.   
  
Gurei should have known his family would be there.   
Ko needed someone to watch her house while she was in   
Japan and Gurei's family had volunteered earlier that   
year to house-sit during the fall. They liked the   
house because it was more remote, quieter, and they   
were closer to Gurei. The guide grimaced in both pain   
and shame as he urged the horse to gallop faster out   
of the village and back into the black woods. First   
Pei getting cursed, now this... it seemed that   
Gurei's family was always punished for being near him.   
  
They had gone through the wood for about a minute   
when, suddenly, Ranma reared up and whinnied in   
fright, knocking Gurei off his back. Gurei got up as   
quickly as possible, not wanting to get trampled by   
the spooked horse. His tail bone was probably cracked,   
and his legs were severely bruised and numb. Gurei could   
barely stand up, but he beckoned Ranma away from the   
darkness. The horse came to him, still skittish.   
"You've been a good horse. You've been brave, the human   
Ranma would be proud of you, boy. You and I both know   
this is where we part though, huh? You'll probably be   
alright. This is a good night for being a horse. Get   
out of here. And try not to get killed." Gurei   
slapped the horse on its flank and it galloped off.  
  
Gurei was alone again.  
  
It was dark. Pitch black. He could navigate fairly   
well on the feel of the path under his feet, but it   
was slow, painful and frightening. He could feel the   
spirits of Jusenkyo scrounging for their victims   
through the air like dogs nosing through the trash,   
and while he knew that he had nothing to fear from   
them until they found someone they had cursed, that   
didn't help him feel any better. He also knew that by   
now Pei was probably taken over. He kept going anyway.   
He needed to see her. Even if she wasn't herself,   
even if she did something terrible... he still needed   
to see her face...to tell her that he loved her.   
  
There was a slight twinkling in the distance that   
gradually grew more distinct as Gurei shambled down   
the path. It finally revealed itself to be the window   
of Ko Lon's cabin. Gurei increased his speed. He was   
there. He had made it! When he reached the door, he   
paused and closed his eyes.  
  
The door would be unlocked. He would open it   
without knocking, startling his wife and Pei. For a   
few seconds they would look at him in shock and then   
Pei would jump and run at him crying "Daddy!" He   
would hug her tightly with tears streaming down his   
cheeks. Pei would ask why he was crying and he would   
say "Because I missed you so much, and I was afraid   
something awful might have happened to you." "Aw   
Daddy," Pei would respond, "nothin's gonna happen to   
me!" Then his wife would smile and ask how his day   
was. "I was in a terrible dream," he'd say, "but now   
I'm awake." Then he'd hug them both. "I love you   
both so very much..."  
  
Gurei opened his eyes. He opened the door...  
  
The first thing he saw was blood. Huge streaks of   
it, splashed haphazardly on the wall across from the   
door like a madman's first attempt at modern art. The   
light in the window came from oil lamps on stands on   
either side of the door. Their flames flickered   
frenetically, changing shadows into nightmares. Gurei   
cautiously walked to the living room to his left. His   
foot slipped backwards and he looked down. There was   
a path of blood on the floor.   
  
Gurei swallowed.   
  
He entered the living room.   
  
He heard a squishing sound to his right and turned.   
There he saw his wife. Or rather... what used to be   
his wife. The body had only one eye that lolled   
around in its socket erratically. The head was tilted   
at an awkward angle, further opening a large gash on   
the side of the neck. The body shuffled on its feet   
toward Gurei reaching out and snatching in the air in   
front of it. It wore the tatters of a cheongsam. It   
dragged a bloody, unraveled loop of intestine that   
hung from the gaping red hole in the body's torso.   
Gurei was too late. Far too late. He stood in shock   
watching the horror creep closer to him.  
  
"She's beautiful, isn't she?"   
  
Gurei whirled around to find his daughter, still so   
small, now covered in blood, her eyes glowing a   
wicked blue, fangs protruding from her lips. "Why?"   
Gurei asked the vampire as tears began to fall down   
his cheeks. "All you needed was her ki. Why did you   
do this to her?"  
  
The waist-high girl with the double pigtails scowled,   
her eyes flashing purple. "She deserved it!" The   
vampire in Pei's body raised a tiny hand. "I don't   
need to explain myself to you, Guide." Thin glowing   
filaments grew from each finger slowly as Gurei   
stared. She made a fist. Gurei saw four of the   
filaments whip toward him and suddenly his world   
exploded in white hot pain. He felt himself falling.   
His head hit the floor. Even through the intense   
pain he tried to get up out of instinct, only to find   
that he could not. He no longer had the arms and legs   
with which to do so. It happened so quickly. The   
spirit was so powerful. How could anyone hope to   
defeat an army of them? "Your immunity to ki draining   
is an irritation, but no matter," Pei's child voice   
spoke in horrible mocking tones, "You will simply   
become food for your dead wife. Isn't that touching?   
I think I might even watch for a bit before I visit   
Japan."  
  
All Gurei could see was the wood ceiling of the   
cabin and the darkening colors around his vision   
obscured even that. He could feel his consciousness   
slipping away. "Pei..." He said with a shudder of   
breath. "Pei, if you can hear me...please know that I   
love you. I've always loved you. I'm sorry we could   
not be together more. I'm sorry I wasn't a better   
father."  
  
"SHUT UP!" The vampire yelled. "Your daughter is   
dead. You can save your sappy apology for the   
afterlife."  
  
In spite of the situation, in spite of the pain, in   
spite of everything, Gurei smiled. Pei had heard him.   
At least that one good thing had happened this night.   
It was small, but Gurei had always been an optimist.   
Maybe the information he had given Li would allow her   
and Lin to defeat Pao. Maybe somehow the others would   
survive. And maybe, when it was all over the Amazon   
nation would be reborn as one based on equality and   
not brutality. Even through the miasma of hate Gurei   
had reached his daughter. That was enough for him to   
believe that humanity had a future...that there was hope.   
  
"Tell me one thing, Feng Lili..." Gurei could sense the   
vampire pause in shock at hearing her mortal name.   
"Was it worth it?" Silence was the vampire's only   
response. Gurei asked again. "Was all this... worth   
selling your soul?"  
  
Gurei was dimly aware of something slicing through   
his neck. "Fuck you," he heard the vampire say.  
  
Gurei died smiling.  
  
~~~~~[END]~~~~~  
  
C&C welcome.  
  
My other fanfics may be found here: 


	2. Ta Ro Ichi Kon

Kyuuketsuki  
(Vampire)   
A Ranma 1/2 fanfiction by Zorknot (W. Brad Robinson)  
  
DISCLAIMER: Ranma 1/2 is the property of Takahashi   
Rumiko, Viz Video, Kitty Films, and Shogakukan.  
  
The prologue to this fic and all of my other fics can   
be found here:   
  
Or here  
  
Chapter 1: Ta Ro Ichi Kon  
~~~~~[START]~~~~~  
  
Sometimes at night, the house spoke to Kasumi.   
Sometimes it would squeak with glee for being so   
clean and full of loving people. A lot of times it   
would groan about the mess still left over from   
Akane-chan's latest creation or the hole in the roof   
from grandfather Happosai being punted into the   
stratosphere. Late at night, while she stared at her   
ceiling, Kasumi fancied she had entire conversations   
with the house. She would often hum a soothing melody   
to it to make it feel better as she drifted off to   
sleep. She even took to calling it "Uchi-chan." The   
house seemed to like that.  
  
She and Uchi-chan had been through a lot. Dojo   
destroyers, mischievous oni, gigantic   
yeti/bull/crane/snake/octopus hybrids, and most   
recently a wedding that was more like a small war.   
Kasumi sighed. Poor Uchi-chan barely had enough time   
to recover from one disaster before another one   
happened right on its heels, but it was still her   
ever-present friend and confidant. It still was her   
family's protector...and the Saotomes' protector too,   
especially now that Auntie was living there as well.  
  
So many loved ones under one roof... and all only a   
few days after such an uproar...It was nights like   
tonight that Kasumi would wake up in a cold sweat and   
short of breath, worrying. It was nights like tonight   
she calmed herself by listening to Uchi-chan's   
squeaks and groans. Despite the chaos that   
Ranma had caused over the past year, things were a   
lot less strained. In fact, Ranma's problems seemed   
to be a stinging salve for the Tendos' own   
difficulties. Kasumi had been having her nightmares   
less and less, and Uchi-chan, despite its   
complaining, seemed happier...more alive.   
  
Kasumi's eyes found her alarm clock. The glowing   
green digits told her it was 12:40. Her tired mind   
debated for a moment whether that was early or late.  
  
Tonight's nightmare had been bad... something to do   
with blood...and her family's sword, but even so her   
eyes were already drooping, and Kasumi almost fell   
back asleep without listening to Uchi-chan's sounds   
much at all. Kasumi didn't feel right about going to   
sleep without saying hello to Uchi-chan though. So,   
just for a minute, she listened...  
  
Kasumi suddenly felt uneasy. There was something   
different. The house's noises seemed more strained,   
more insistent, like it was trying to tell her   
something... Then the house started screaming.  
  
"Wait," Kasumi spoke softly, half awake, "that's   
not Uchi-chan that's..." Kasumi sat up in bed, her   
eyes wide "Nabiki!...?" Kasumi listened closer. It   
was most definitely a human scream, and it was most   
definitely her sister. "Oh my!" Kasumi said as her   
fingers touched her lips.   
  
Kasumi paused to think... Maybe Nabiki-chan was just   
acting, she had done that before... Kasumi only   
listened for a second more before she was out of bed   
and in her slippers. No actress could scream like   
that. No actress would want to. She couldn't wait for   
Ranma or Akane. If they hadn't gotten up by now   
something was wrong. She had to do something...but   
what? "Ohhhhhh!" She paced hurriedly around the area   
by her bed as she tried desperately to think of   
something. All the while, her younger sister was   
screaming. Nabiki-chan was screaming!   
  
Attracted by the glint of moonlight off the silver,   
her eyes found the cross necklace on her nightstand.   
It had been her mother's. It was a plain, silver   
cross, not all that different from any other such   
necklace. It had no obvious decoration. In fact,   
there was only one thing odd about it. On one side of   
the cross, four kanji characters were inscribed. They   
read, "Many paths, one soul."   
  
She grasped it and held it to her chest. "Oh   
Mother! What am I going to do?" This wasn't the first  
time Kasumi had awakened to the sounds of an intruder.   
The night Ryoga challenged Ranma she had thought Ryoga   
was a burglar. But, even though she had felt a sense   
of danger then too, she somehow knew that everyone   
would be okay.   
  
This was different. Nabiki was SCREAMING. She was   
HURTING. Someone or something was hurting her. Now,   
unlike that night with Ryoga, there was a terrible   
urgency intertwined with the fear. If she tried to   
wake up Akane or Ranma... she might be too late.   
  
She might be too late anyway.   
  
Kasumi held the cross in front of her in cupped   
hands, hoping to find some answer in the smooth,   
reflective metal.   
  
"Protect them all, Kasumi-chan" the cross seemed to   
say, "Protect your family, and yourself... I love   
you. I always will"   
  
Those were the last words her mother said to a   
puzzled Kasumi before she left her the cross and   
breathed her last breath. Slowly, Kasumi fastened the   
necklace around her neck. "I'll try mother. I'll   
try."  
  
Resolved, but not at all calm, Kasumi opened the   
door. Looking down the hall she saw a bluish glow   
emanating from Nabiki's room. "Oh my!" Kasumi's   
fingers touched her lips as she quickly jumped back   
in her room and closed the door. Her heart raced.   
Maybe she could just wait for Ranma or Akane anyway.   
They had to have heard the scream by now, and they   
were used to this sort of thing.   
  
They were supposed to stop the bad people and   
Kasumi was supposed to clean up afterwards. That's   
the way it always was and that was the way Kasumi   
liked it. She could deal with dirty floors. She could   
deal with holes in the ceiling. She could even deal   
with puddles of congealed ectoplasm provided the   
poltergeist that created them was properly   
exorcized...  
  
There was something glowing and attacking her   
sister. She had no idea how to deal with that, and...   
she was afraid to see it. "I'm scared, Mother!" tears   
came freely from Kasumi's eyes as she clutched the   
cross necklace.  
  
Ranma...what would he do in a situation like this?   
Kasumi smiled in spite of herself at the thought.   
Ranma would just burst through the door and start   
attacking without so much as second spent wondering   
whether or not he could defeat what was beyond it. He   
would never do something so cowardly as hide in his   
room crying while his sister screams...  
  
Akane and Ranma were taking too long. Kasumi glanced   
at the clock. 12:42. Her sister had been in pain for   
nearly two minutes! She had to go. Now.  
  
Kasumi opened the door to the hall again. Nabiki's   
screams were more raw now as they echoed through the   
hallway. Kasumi had to do something. She would never   
forgive herself if she didn't.  
  
As she walked steadily toward the glowing door,   
Kasumi thought of her options. There was no way she   
could stop whatever was in Nabiki's room, but maybe   
she could distract it long enough for her sister to   
get away and then find Ranma or Akane. But she wasn't   
sure if she could even distract it. She obviously   
posed no threat...   
  
Kasumi found herself at the door. Nabiki's screams   
were lessening. Praying that somehow Nabiki was   
alright and bracing herself for what lay beyond,   
Kasumi reached for the knob and pulled the door open...  
  
Nabiki was writhing on her bed. Her pajamas were   
tattered and stained with blood. She and her attacker   
were both glowing an intense blue- the source of the   
light. The attacker was bending over Nabiki, its   
mouth on her neck. It was also wearing pajamas, and   
oddly, appeared female...with red hair in a pigtail.   
  
"Ranma?" Kasumi asked in shock. The attacker   
paused, then whirled around to face Kasumi with a   
feral snarl. The hair was wild, the eyes were pupil-  
less and glowing an actinic blue. Matching blue-white   
fangs protruded out of the mouth, but it was Ranma-  
chan's face. "W-would you like some tea?"  
  
The fanged, demonic looking Onna-Ranma knitted   
her brow in confusion for a moment. Nabiki's body   
went slack on the bed, her head lolling to one side,   
her eyes eerily open. "No," Ranma said, "I don't want   
any tea..." She rose from the bed and glided rapidly   
to Kasumi in the doorway. Looking up at the taller   
girl Ranma-chan smiled cruelly, showing her glowing   
fangs. "I would like some fresh blood though."  
  
"Oh my!" Kasumi's fingers went to her lips again.   
  
"You picked a real bad time to interrupt me."   
Ranma-chan placed two hands on Kasumi's stomach. For   
a moment Kasumi stood, looking down at Ranma in   
confusion. Then it hit.   
  
At first, all Kasumi felt was a severe pressure as   
she was blown back into the wall behind her in a   
flash of blue light. Then she felt the pain.   
Excruciating, sickening pain. She looked down. There   
was a wide, quivering, gaping hole where her stomach   
once was. She wondered crazily what the long white   
thing was.   
  
She realized it was her spine.   
  
"That's right, bitch," the terrible creature using   
Ranma-chan's body said, "Just be a good girl and die   
over there while I finish. And don't get back up   
until I bring you back to life."   
  
Kasumi was already growing faint, darkness   
impinging on her vision, by the time Ranma-chan turned   
back into Nabiki's room. Kasumi dully realized she was   
going into shock. Not enough blood was getting to her   
brain. It was leaving her, abandoning her. Life was   
abandoning her. It was being burned by gastric juices   
as it poured onto the floor.   
  
Kasumi weakly brought her hand to her cross. She   
grasped it with all her remaining strength. "I'm   
sorry, Mother," she whispered through the blood in   
her throat, "I'm...sorry." Her eyes closed. She had   
failed....failed.... Nabiki in the   
hands of a demon. Demon hands, hands of fate of God   
of dying death a doorway pain the end remain here do   
not die save her save her death pain mom's chocolate   
chip cookies burning stomach pain love need....  
  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
Where am I?   
  
Just below the ceiling.  
  
Oh.  
  
It's a good ceiling. Uchi-chan's ceiling. I can   
feel its energy...  
  
Hello, Uchi-chan!   
  
There's a shiver in the energy. Something is   
wrong.   
  
Am I dead?   
  
Oh yes, that explains a few things...   
  
Nabiki is in trouble.   
  
Where is Mother? Mother can handle it. Mother always   
took care of everything.  
  
No. Mother is...somewhere else. Heaven maybe. I am   
still here.   
  
Maybe I should wake Ranma up?   
  
No, Ranma was the one that killed me.   
  
Really? That's odd. She seemed like such a nice   
girl... when she wasn't a boy. She was a nice boy too   
of course... But she killed me. That wasn't very nice...  
  
Something bad is happening...  
  
Maybe Akane? She's a martial artist. She could   
handle it maybe.   
  
Didn't she almost die though? Who saved her?   
  
Ranma.   
  
Oh.   
  
Something really bad is going on in the next room.   
  
Father?   
  
No time. Nabiki might be dying.  
  
Not Grandfather Happosai,   
  
Not Uncle Saotome,   
  
Not Nodoka...  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
There were many paths, but Kasumi was only one   
soul. As the idea that maybe, just maybe she could   
still do something echoed through whatever she was   
using to think, her way became clear. The various   
parts of her came to the decision at more or less the   
same time. Using Uchi-chan's energy as a guide, she   
drifted into Nabiki's room. Ranma-chan was just   
lowering her mouth to Nabiki's neck again.   
  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
No. Stop the pain. End it. Protect her.   
  
But how can I do anything if I'm dead!  
  
No. Not dead.  
  
But...  
  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
Kasumi had to stop it. She had to stop Nabiki's   
pain. She concentrated on Ranma, trying to pull her   
away from Nabiki. She felt herself get heavier. She   
felt herself... regaining feeling. She opened her   
eyes and saw her hands on Ranma-chan's shoulders   
right before they jerked backwards. Kasumi fell,   
bringing Ranma-chan with her. Kasumi blinked. Somehow   
she was alive, without any wounds, in Nabiki's room,   
naked, except, she realized, she still had the cross   
sandwiched between her hand and Ranma-chan's   
shoulder.  
  
Ranma-chan did not move immediately. She laid still   
on top of Kasumi long enough for Kasumi to wonder   
if she was ever going to move. Finally she spoke.   
"So. You're the Kouken... I suppose it makes sense in   
a strange way..." Ranma-chan leapt off Kasumi in a   
blur and suddenly she was straddling her. She held up   
her hand and made what looked at first like the sign   
for victory or peace.   
  
Then blue energy grew out of the two fingers. "Now   
lets see... I just need to pierce one of your chakras   
with my ki to kill you...which one will it be?" She   
brought her hand over Kasumi's bare breasts. "The   
heart? No, too dramatic. Besides, you're too well   
protected there."   
  
The hand drifted over to Kasumi's brow. "Your   
forehead? No, as interesting as piercing your third   
eye would be, it wouldn't be worth the effort."   
  
Ranma-chan brought the ki-extended fingers down on   
Kasumi's neck. "Yes, of course. Visuddha, the throat   
chakra. Seat of consciousness and the ability to   
communicate what you know and feel...My favorite." The   
ends of the extension of each finger dug deep into the   
wood on either side of Kasumi. "And of course I won't   
have to worry about you turning into kasumi again and   
getting away, because I'm using my legs to cover your   
lower chakras with my ki." Ranma's face came nose to   
nose with Kasumi's as the fanged demon smiled, "In   
other words...You're trapped."  
  
"What do you mean 'turn into Kasumi?' I'm Kasumi   
now."  
  
Ranma-chan managed to look confused for a moment,   
then she smiled again allowing full view of her fangs.   
"That's right, that's your name too isn't it? Your  
parents named you Mist. How cute! Too bad they hadn't   
trained you better. As I said, you won't be turning   
into your namesake again any time soon. You failed,   
Kouken."  
  
Kasumi stared into the awful creature's glowing   
blue eyes in shock She realized something she was   
only dimly aware of before: there was no way this   
could be Ranma. "Who are you?"  
  
The creature backed off a bit "I am a vampire. A   
kyuuketsuki. I am going to kill you. Nothing else   
matters beyond that." Kasumi frowned. Something else   
about this creature... It wasn't stupid, or without   
emotion. Although it controlled Ranma now, Kasumi   
could see it had lived its own life once.   
  
Suddenly she felt sharp pain on either side of her   
neck. The kyuuketsuki was bringing her fingers   
together...  
  
"This is going to be slow, and extremely painful."   
The kyuuketsuki smiled even wider. "I for one am going   
to love every second of it."  
  
The razor sharp ki extensions from the vampire's   
fingers bit deeper into Kasumi's neck. Any time now   
they would cut through the Jugular vein and Carotid   
artery. In desperation, Kasumi clutched the cross,   
still in her right hand, close to her heart.  
  
The vampire who wore the face of Ranma laughed   
mirthlessly. "How quaint! If this were some idiotic   
horror movie you might actually be lucky." The   
kyuuketsuki's features turned serious. "But it isn't,   
and you're not." The vampire's fingers bit deeper.   
Kasumi gasped. She felt the blood spurt out from her   
neck. "Heh, religion...false comfort for the weak and   
perverse instrument of the powerful." The vampire   
brought her fingers closer...  
  
"It was my mother's." Kasumi said softly with tear   
filled eyes. She was delirious from all that had   
happened in such a short time. She was going to   
die... again. For a moment she thought... but there   
was no way she could protect her family now. There   
never really was. She was going to die for real this   
time... She would join her mother soon. All the pain   
would soon be over. She relaxed. The   
corners of her mouth curled up slightly as she   
thought of how the cross she held had kept her alive for   
almost eleven years after...it... happened. She   
looked straight into the unnatural eyes of the   
kyuuketsuki...and spoke, even as her vision began to   
fade "The only belief that I have is that she is   
somewhere, watching over me. I...cherish... that   
belief more than anything, and I will not allow it   
to be taken from me...or dismissed."  
  
The vampire snarled and brought her fingers still   
closer together. "I dismiss it. And after I kill you   
and make you my slave, I'm going to destroy your cross,   
and your stupid belief along with it."   
  
Kasumi suddenly felt an invading presence. At first   
it was vague, intangible, but gradually, she became   
aware of dark emotions, of greed and bloodlust and...   
hunger. Then, there was something else, a tiny   
glimmer of light in a dark tunnel. Kasumi started to   
pursue it, but that was when the pain came.   
  
The cuts on her neck were minor trifles. This was   
true pain. White hot molten metal burned through   
Kasumi's veins. Sandpaper rubbed against her eyes. Her   
fingernails were pulled off her fingers. Her teeth   
were twisted in their sockets. A terrible keening   
shrill sound filled her ears. "Ah, you feel it now,   
don't you?" the vampire's voice came from far away.   
"The exquisite pain of my energy subverting yours.   
Soon you will be nothing more than an empty husk with   
no will of your own. Then again, that's more or less   
how you've been living, anyway."  
  
~NO~  
  
The thought wasn't a plea, but a command. Kasumi   
felt her own presence, her own aura, gather around   
the center of her being. She was dimly aware that the   
area around her physical body had gotten brighter,   
almost as if she herself were glowing...   
  
She felt the vampire's aura hesitate, like a   
nocturnal creature in a sudden light, before it   
lunged at her. Seconds went by like hours as their   
two auras fought each other. Each time the vampire   
came close to reaching her exposed center, she would   
think of her mother, her family, and her promise, and   
she gained new strength, pushing the vampire back.   
Slowly, Kasumi gained ground. The vampire's aura grew   
weaker and Kasumi's grew stronger until suddenly, she   
realized she was no longer defending but attacking.   
She could destroy the vampire once and for all! She   
could utterly obliterate it...  
...and Ranma as well.   
  
~It feels good doesn't it, Kouken?~ It was the   
vampire! ~Go ahead, go that extra step, assimilate me,   
gain my strength. Your little martial arts friend is   
here too, he has a lot of strength, very tasty. It's   
not like anyone would miss him either, after all he's   
just a freeloader.~   
  
Kasumi's aura stopped whipping out against the   
vampire's. Kasumi kept it from going any further, but   
it was like containing a flame, or damming a raging   
river. Desperately she called out mentally to Ranma-  
chan hoping that maybe she could keep from destroying   
her if she could just separate Ranma from the   
vampire. There was just the slightest reaction. It   
was miniscule compared the tempest raging between the   
two auras, like a the movement of a baby's little toe   
amidst a battle of giants. Kasumi saw it though and   
pulled, trying to tug it loose from the vampire's   
grasp.   
  
~This is pointless~ the vampire projected suddenly,   
relinquishing her hold on Ranma.   
  
Kasumi was snapped back into her body. She blinked,   
not believing that she could suddenly be laying on the   
floor of her sister's bedroom once again.   
  
The vampire inhabiting Ranma stood unsteadily, its   
face half illuminated by the sodium streetlamp through   
the window, and looked down at Kasumi with half-lidded,   
dimly glowing eyes. "Point goes to you, Kouken. Are   
you happy? Do you realize how little this victory   
matters?" The bloodsucker squinted Ranma's eyes. "No.   
You don't know anything do you? You don't even   
realize what you are." Crossing Ranma-chan's arms, the   
kyuuketsuki said one final word: "Pitiful."  
  
An intense glow emanated from Ranma's body for a moment   
and then abruptly it was gone. Like a marionette with its   
strings suddenly cut, Ranma collapsed, unconscious.  
  
Kasumi sat up and felt both sides of her neck. There   
were the raised ridges of scars... But no blood. How   
was it possible? She looked out of the doorway into   
the dark of the hall. She could barely make out the   
outline of her clothes and slippers in a depression   
in the wall. How was any of it possible?   
  
She looked at Ranma's unconscious body for a moment   
trying to figure out what had just happened. Was the   
vampire gone? Was everyone safe now? Kasumi wanted to   
believe so but it just happened too soon, and what   
the vampire had said...She felt adrenaline seep out of   
her, leaving only fatigue. She realized with some   
surprise that someone else was standing in the room.   
Slowly, she turned and looked up. It was Nabiki. She   
was leaning against the wall, a robe now covering her   
tattered pajamas. Dried blood was visible on her neck,   
arms, and calves, but as far as Kasumi could tell,   
there were no open wounds. Yet another mystery.   
  
Kasumi then became aware of another fact: Nabiki was   
wielding a baseball bat.   
  
Kasumi quickly got in between her sister and Ranma.   
"Nabiki, she's Ranma again. Ranma-chan is innocent in   
all this."  
  
"How do you know that 'neechan?" Nabiki's voice was   
hoarse and weak.  
  
"I ...I guess I don't. But why would the vampire   
pass out like that?"  
  
Nabiki shook her head and raised the bat in her   
shaking grasp "I don't care." She swallowed, "I still   
want to hit her. Him. Whatever. The bastard can't even   
pick a gender and stick with it."  
  
"Oh my! I don't think you should say that!"   
Kasumi's fingers touched her lips.  
  
"Why not, Kasumi?" Nabiki demanded. "Don't you know   
what that...bitch did to me?"  
  
"Gomen nasai, imoutochan," Kasumi apologized to her   
sister, "I'm not quite sure... I just got the feeling   
when you said that, that it was going to come back to   
you."  
  
"You got the feeling..." Nabiki repeated apparently   
finding Kasumi's response a little odd. "Kasumi, what   
the hell happened?" Nabiki shuffled unsteadily to the   
light switch and flicked it on. "What was with that   
light show between you and Ranma? And why are you... in   
your birthday suit?"   
  
Kasumi looked out in the hall at her clothes. She   
looked at the cross still in her right hand. "I'm   
afraid I really don't know, Nabiki-chan. I wish I   
did." There was an awkward pause. Then Kasumi spoke   
again "Do you want some tea?"   
  
Nabiki laughed, though there wasn't much mirth in   
it. "Tea. Your miracle cure. Helps with everything   
from colds to bad moods to...whatever the hell that   
was." Nabiki sighed and relaxed, propping the bat up   
on her shoulder. She rubbed her throat with her free   
hand "Maybe it's not such a bad idea, though... Here,"   
Nabiki took off her robe and handed it to Kasumi, who   
accepted it with a weak smile "no charge... I've...got   
to think for a bit...I...Meet me downstairs, okay?"   
Nabiki started to walk out of the room.  
  
Kasumi was just about to think of getting up and   
getting dressed when Nabiki turned around. "Wait a   
minute, where is Akane? Shouldn't she be bashing Ranma's   
head in with a hammer by now? In fact... Kasumi, is   
everyone else still asleep?"  
  
Kasumi nodded. "I think so, Nabiki."  
  
"Now why is that do you suspect?"  
  
Kasumi felt a chill pass down her spine as the answer  
came upon her. "I think... there are more of the   
vampires...here."  
  
Nabiki took a large, unsteady step toward Kasumi.   
"Nani?! There are more of these things?" Nabiki kicked   
Ranma for emphasis.  
  
"I'm afraid so."  
  
Nabiki gripped the bat tighter. "G-great. I've got   
the perfect plan. I'll wave this bat around   
ineffectually, and you can offer refreshments."  
  
There was a rustling sound and Nabiki and Kasumi watched   
as Ranma's arm jerked and then relaxed. It moved again   
slowly pressing against the floor. Ranma's torso rose   
up unsteadily. Out of her mouth there issued forth a   
terrible moan...  
  
Kasumi saw Nabiki's eyes narrow as she prepared to swing...  
  
Ranma sat up and rubbed the back of her head, eyes   
squeezed shut, confusion readily visible on her face.   
"Ack! My head feels like Akane cooked it! What's goin   
on?"   
  
Nabiki lunged past Kasumi and swung at Ranma with the   
Bat. She connected with Ranma's head.  
  
Ranma fell to the ground.  
  
"Nabiki!" Kasumi crawled over to Ranma and shot a   
accusing glare at Nabiki. "How dare you hurt Ranma-  
chan like that! Can't you see she's been through   
enough?"  
  
"Kasumi, I'm sorry," Nabiki's eyes snapped their   
focus to Kasumi, "but I don't fucking care whether   
that's Ranma, a vampire, or Amateresu come out of her   
fucking cave. Whoever it was that...hurt me... used   
that body...and that body deserves to be damaged."  
  
Ranma sat up holding a hand to the side of her   
head. "Kasumi, she's right. I mean, thanks for carin   
and all, but even if it wasn't me, even if there was   
nothin I could do ta get Lili ta stop, I feel guilty.   
I need the pain as much as she needed ta hit me."  
  
"Wait a minute," Nabiki crouched next to Ranma and   
grabbed her by the collar of her spiral decorated   
pajamas. "You know that bitch's NAME?"  
  
"Yeah. I know her name...Feng Lili." Ranma got to   
her feet and Nabiki followed, still grabbing Ranma's   
pajamas. Kasumi could see Ranma's fists were clenched.   
She was almost shaking with rage. "And if she ever   
does come back ya gotta let me help ya kill her."  
  
Kasumi felt a sad, uneasy, unclean feeling come over   
her. The same feeling she had felt for more than a   
decade. All she would have to do is give Uchi-chan a   
good thorough cleaning and it would go away, but Kasumi   
wondered. She wondered why, when she had thought of Ranma   
killing Lili, she had smiled.   
  
Kasumi realized her fingers were at her lips, her   
mouth almost open. "Oh my," she murmured softly and   
brought her hand to her side.  
  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
Sometimes at night  
When cold winds moan  
I sit and wonder,  
All alone.  
  
Am I really living?  
  
A hidden hate within me burns  
A hidden heart within me yearns  
  
I must be strong  
I must smile through the pain  
But sometimes I want to run away  
Sometimes...   
I feel things I can't explain...  
-Fr. Kasumi's Book of Recipes  
  
~~~~~[END]~~~~~  
  
The following people have helped me with this chapter:  
Nemesis Zero  
Edward  
Dracos  
KpJam  
Akraen  
  
Any mistakes are my own.  
  
As always C&C is most welcome. 


	3. The House of Elders

Kyuuketsuki  
Chapter 3(counting prologue):The House of Elders  
By Zorknot  
  
DISCLAIMER: Ranma1/2 owned by Takahashi Rumiko and   
various other companies.  
  
NOTE: All previous chapters can be found at  
  
  
  
or at   
  
  
  
The website is primitive, but functional.  
  
Nyuuchezutswun is the name of the Amazon village.  
  
~~~~~[BEGIN]~~~~~  
  
The darkness was profound. Even with the torch still burning in the   
passageway, the inky depths of night curled around Li San, making   
her feel naked, cold, and alone.   
  
Gurei had left.   
  
He had gone to certain death and he had smiled at her in thanks at   
the chance to do so. He was not a woman, not a warrior, not really   
anything in the Amazon way of thinking. Li San herself had not a   
week hence joined her sisters in laughter at the way he tottered   
about with his bulbous features and rotund physique. And yet...  
  
Li San tried to pull herself together, tried to squelch the twin   
streams of moisture that rolled down her face. Again there was the   
ever present doubt she had...that she wasn't meant to be a Healer, a   
Warrior. The sight of blood still made her squeamish, cries of pain   
drove needles in her spine, yet she was expected to kill as much as   
save those who were her patients.   
  
Magic made curable many things that stymied science, but it was a   
double edged sword. The demon god that languished in the source   
of the Jusenkyo springs fed magic not only to its waters but to the   
creatures that drank of them. Even common animals could inflict   
terrible curses upon their enemies, and those humans that   
campaigned against the Amazons could unleash punishments many   
times more insidious.   
  
Possession was nigh incurable after only few days and often those   
who may once have been friends were twisted into perverse   
creatures of monstrous strength. Cancer, by comparison, was at the   
level of a common cold.  
  
The vampires of Jusenkyo were not the only evil in the world, but   
if possession was a disease, then they were an epidemic. An   
epidemic for which there was only one remedy... Death.  
  
This really wasn't any different from any other task she had been   
given. She had the means for a cure, and now she had to administer   
it.   
  
Pao Da was a witch. As things looked she was the one most likely   
responsible for the failing of the wards of Jusenkyo. The only way   
to defeat her was through her familiar. An owl. Sha Resu. She had   
to remind him of his old life, and then she had to kill him.  
  
If she didn't do this the Amazon's only true defense against the   
vampires would be closed to them, and not only would they likely   
perish, but they would become an army of revenants that would   
bring death to all.   
  
Li San was an Amazon. She could not cry. She could not be weak   
now when she was needed by her people. She could not allow a   
man to show more courage and nobility than herself. She was a   
secret believer in male suffrage, a belief strengthened by what she   
had learned tonight, but she also had her pride as an Amazon, and   
it was this that granted her the strength to wipe the moisture from   
her eyes, extinguish the flame of her torch, and grab the wooden   
rungs of the ladder to the outside world.  
  
Li San climbed out of the dark hole she had been stationed in and   
analyzed the situation at the main entrance.  
  
The villagers were getting more and more frantic. Their torches   
rose up and down in anger. Weeping fathers begged that their   
children at least be allowed inside, raising them up almost as if in   
offering. All of them were trying to get in, and only Lin was   
keeping them at bay.   
  
Li San couldn't just go in herself. She had seen what had become   
of the elders, and she knew that without some aid she would perish   
as well. But the other warriors of the House were either already   
dead, distributing cleansed Jusenkyo water, guarding the other   
entrances, or trying to get inside themselves. She had to contact   
them somehow, but how could she do this without revealing what   
terror was going on inside the House of Elders, the very center of   
everything that Amazons stood for?   
  
How could she find aid, without causing total panic?  
  
Seeing the mobs of screaming villagers so tenuously kept at bay,   
seeing how violence was a secret undercurrent that threatened to   
reveal itself at any moment, Li San decided that total panic was   
inevitable. The House had to be cleared.  
  
Li San was not an imposing figure. She was small, only some   
fourteen hands high, and her frame was slight. She was athletic   
more than strong, and most of the time her small stature was a   
strength rather than a weakness. But right now she wished she was   
massive as a village guard, twenty-four hands high with gigantic   
rippling muscles and a wide, domineering stance. Even if she was   
as big as a house, though she doubted she'd make it through that   
crowd. There was no easy way to do this, but she had a way.   
  
Li San closed her eyes and silently thanked the Goddess for her   
training.   
  
She concentrated and breathed in deeply, moving her ki outside of   
herself, and into the crowd, halfway between where she stood in   
darkness and the step where Lin brandished her halberds in an   
attempt to keep those that got through the four other guards from   
passing. Now she used her second sight to see herself, not only   
visually but thermally and with sound as well, then she stretched   
her ki into a long strand between the two locations and "arced" her   
image across the ki strand to the step.   
  
There was gasping as those in the front seemed to see someone   
materialize out of thin air.   
  
Good. It worked. A bead of sweat trickled down Li San's brow.   
Elder Ko Lon could perform the "Splitting Cat Hairs" technique   
without difficulty, but it was never meant to be used over such   
large distances, and while Li San was skilled, she lacked the vast   
experience of an elder. She would have to be quick or she would   
risk losing concentration altogether.  
  
"Lin, we must assemble a team to destroy Pao Da." Li San spoke   
knowing her words were repeated by the image. She could not hear   
what Lin might be saying though, she had to trust that she was   
understood. "The guide has given me information that will help us,   
but I require aid." The image flickered as Li San gasped for air.   
She was shaking from the stress. "Please...let...me...through." She   
managed before her ki snapped back into her and she staggered,   
panting, as colored lights played across her vision. Swallowing she   
took a few moments to recover and then straightened herself. She   
felt lightheaded and sick to her stomach, but she blinked these   
sensations away and concentrated on the crowd in front of her.   
  
When ki passes through the body it produces a giddy or uneasy,   
shuddery feeling in even those insensitive to psychic phenomena.   
When the ki passed through the crowd then it made an aisle way   
through the people as they almost unconsciously moved away from   
the sensation. Li San could get through, but she had to be quick.  
  
Taking one last breath she broke into a sprint and headed for the   
almost indistinguishable crack in the mob. She dodged and weaved,   
and as the aisle way closed she eventually had to use her nearly   
depleted ki reserves to jump over people. As she reached the front   
though, people started backing away for her, recognizing her status   
as a healer and as someone who had something important to say.  
  
The two guards closest to her nodded, and she stepped on to the   
veranda of the House of Elders. The battle had not yet begun and   
already she was out of breath and faint. Li San had youth, but for   
an Amazon youth held little virtue, only skill. She had lived her   
seventeen years in a time of relative peace and she felt it now. Lin,   
entering her thirtieth year, held such power in her body it could be   
smelled. Like the crispness of ozone. There was such difference in   
their skill levels, Li San almost felt like jumping back into the   
crowd rather than speak to Lin. Stories of Lin were told to her as a   
child, shared across campfires, whispered in taverns. Lin was in   
fact, Li San's idol.   
  
Li San greatly respected the elders. There was no idea among the   
Amazons that age equated frailty, and she honored them to the   
point of near worship, as did many others. But they were gone.   
Blown apart. And now there was only Lin. If anyone could bring   
the Amazons together and banish the vampires once again it would   
be Lin. Lin was their only hope.  
  
Li San kneeled deeply in front of her heroine and stayed in that   
position until she could trust herself to look up without breaking   
into tears once again.   
  
"Stand, sister Li San. I would hear this information you bring from   
the Guide." Lin commanded. Her voice rang clear and true. Part of   
it was an act, Li San knew. Part of it was just to give an appearance   
of strength to the mobs surrounding them. Still, Li San took   
comfort in it. Lin would not let the Amazons fail.   
  
Shakily, Li San stood. Once again she mustered her courage; she   
looked straight up into her idol's eyes. So fierce those eyes, they   
could challenge mountains and they would win. Li San wanted   
desperately to look away, but that would show weakness, and she   
would not do that. Not here. Not now. "Sister Lin," She began,   
feeling not for the first time that 'sister' was entirely unsatisfactory,   
however technically appropriate it might be, "there is a way to kill   
the witch."  
  
"What's this about a witch?" One of the women in the crowd   
shouted.  
  
"We shouldn't be worried about witches now! We have to protect   
our men and children from the vampires!" another woman insisted.  
  
Sometimes people could be so inane in times of stress, and the   
worrisome thing was it was often about the things they cared most   
about.   
  
Li San addressed not the crowd but Lin. "I need help. The House   
must be cleared..."  
  
Lin set her jaw and waved Li San silent. She stepped toward the   
crowd and spoke, "People of Nyuuchezutswun! I and my fellow   
Guardian sisters have kept a dire secret from you, but now it must   
be told. The vampires have already reached this place."  
  
"No!" one of the men said this time, "We should still have an hour   
at least!"  
  
"The witch has been masquerading as elder Pao Da for some time   
now. Tonight after a scheduled meeting, it assassinated all of the   
other elders save Ko Lon, who remains in Japan."   
  
A deafening murmur arose. "What will we do?" "We're crushed!"   
"What chance have we now?"   
  
"Why have you kept this from us!" a voice demanded.  
  
"I hear someone among you questioning the authority of the   
Guardians of the House of Elders." Lin boomed in her stormy alto   
voice. The crowd quieted. "You have plenty reason to doubt the   
House. The Elders are all dead save for two, and half of our best   
warriors perished with them. The witch masquerading as Elder Pao   
Da remains in the House, kept from the rest of the village only by   
virtue of the House's protection. Until now there has been no way   
to combat this menace. We have been keeping Guard on the House   
for the safety of all, to keep the witch from escaping. If you would   
challenge us in this, then be the first to volunteer to vanquish this   
beast."  
  
A well muscled woman with black hair and a scar through the left   
eye pushed up through the crowd. "I will volunteer! I still have   
courage and honor, even if those of the honored House of Elders   
lack both!" She spat on the ground.  
  
Lin actually smiled. "Well met, sister Buri Lo. I see that you do   
indeed posses courage and honor...but have you intelligence and   
patience? Tell me, Buri, how you expect to vanquish this witch   
once inside." The smile left Lin's lips and her features turned   
painfully sour, "This fiend that has reduced our elders to puddles   
on the floor, that has left some of our strongest warriors, our sisters,   
as nothing more than twisted bones and flesh."  
  
Buri Lo simply glared stonily at Lin, apparently unable to offer any   
suggestions.  
  
"Let me tell you what you will be facing, my sisters. Arcs of white   
hot energy, cutting through anything in its path as easily as if   
nothing were there. Powerful blasts of ki that need only come near   
you to rend you free of all thought, and if they should reach you,   
cause instantaneous death. The hag is fast and cunning and can   
dodge any attack. It has the mind of an elder at its command. And   
who knows what powers this witch may possess that I haven't   
been witness to. We made every attempt to vanquish the nightmare,   
but death is not a price to be paid lightly. When we saw that none   
would survive if we persisted, we fled."  
  
"But now we are faced with death from the springs as well!" This   
was from a man, holding a small child, scarcely more than a baby,   
with one arm. "If we can't enter the House for our protection, how   
will we survive?"  
  
"We would not, were it not for the aid of the Jusenkyo Guide. He   
has given us a way to defeat the witch." Lin replied.  
  
Buri spat again, "The Jusenkyo Guide is a man. Not even a warrior   
that one."  
  
Li San had been a silent witness to all this, marveling at how   
masterfully Lin was handling these tough questions, but to hear the   
Jusenkyo Guide dismissed as nothing...she started speaking before   
she realized. "The Guide may be a man, but he has a woman's   
heart! He is as noble as any warrior, and braver than many here. As   
I speak he travels into the woods, to elder Ko Lon's cabin, to try to   
save his family from certain death. If there are any who doubt the   
veracity of my words, travel there and see for yourself!"  
  
"We are not fools who would do such a thing," spoke one of the   
guards, a tall, willowy Amazon with unnaturally white hair and a   
somber expression on a youthful, elven face. "but what   
information could the man Gurei offer that could be of any use   
here?" Li San recognized her as Bura Shu, a healer like herself but   
of much greater experience. She was around Lin's age and the two   
often worked as a team. Li San was a healer due only to her   
unwillingness to cause pain. She often looked at Bura as someone   
to surpass as opposed to someone to admire, but she held a large   
measure of respect for her as well.  
  
Li San could feel the eyes of hundreds burning into her and she felt   
the doubts start to creep in. What if the Guide's plan didn't work?   
Whoever entered the House would die, and it would be her fault.   
What if she got part of it wrong? What if no one believed her?   
What if they attacked her outright? Li San gulped, closed her eyes   
and focused. This was a small thing. This was a recounting of   
information. She could do this. After she was done, it would be out   
of her hands, and she could move on to helping out the wounded in   
the upcoming battle. She just had to concentrate on the particulars.   
"The witch...has a weakness." She began. Still she felt the   
expectations like an electric charge, her throat went dry. She   
swallowed again. "It has a familiar. An owl. This owl...It has   
within it one of the vampiric spirits of Jusenkyo."  
  
"That hardly sounds like a weakness!" Someone shouted from the   
crowd.  
  
Li San closed her eyes took in a breath, opened them and   
continued. "Its name is Sha Resu. Long ago when the magicians   
ruled the lands he led an uprising against them. He was caught and   
when he would not reveal the names of his comrades he was turned   
into an owl. He sacrificed his soul to help destroy the magicians'   
rule, but now he has been perverted by the demon god of   
Jusenkyo."  
  
"We face death on two fronts and all you can offer us is stories?"   
An outraged voice asked.  
  
Li San's eyes started burning. A lump grew in her throat. She   
could not cry though. Not here, not now. Once she had revealed   
what she knew she could cry. Then she could be weak. Now was   
the time for strength. "If one can remind Sha Resu of his past, he'll   
be distracted, then the owl will be vulnerable...kill it, and the   
witch's power dies as well."  
  
"How sure are you that this plan of the Guide's will work?" asked   
Bura Shu.  
  
"I...I don't know!" Li San could think of no other response. She   
wanted out of this burning furnace of eyes and back in the darkness   
of solitude, where she could be alone with her fears. With her tears.   
  
"You don't know? You would risk lives on a mere suspicion? Do   
you realize what we face?" a voice challenged.  
  
"This is a fool's plan!" someone else called out.  
  
Li San had failed. No one would volunteer for this. She hadn't   
thought it out. She hadn't figured the witch's raw power into   
account. She had panicked everyone for nothing. She wasn't fit for   
all this. She was a fool. "You're right," she whispered. "You're   
right," she said louder. "It was wrong of me to ask for volunteers   
for this." Li San turned her back on the people. "Lin, please open   
the doors. I will go myself."  
  
Lin put a strong hand on Li San's shoulder. "You will not be going   
without me, my sister."  
  
Li San looked up in wonderment at Lin's strong warrior features,   
at the grim yet somehow warm smile. In this terrible night of death   
and suffering, here was a moment she would treasure forever. All   
she could do in response was nod.  
  
Lin turned to the crowd. "Will any follow us on this fool's plan?   
We may all die this night; who among you will die with honor?"   
There was murmuring within the crowd.  
  
Buri Lo spoke up. "My words were not empty. I will go anywhere   
I might shed demon blood." She went up all four steps of the   
veranda in a single stride and unsheathed her massive twelve-hand   
sword from her back. The sword was almost as large as Li San   
herself, but Buri held it easily using only one arm. She spun it   
around in a figure eight pattern once before resting it on her   
shoulder.   
  
"I offer my services as well." Bura Shu said bowing her head of   
long white hair before gracefully climbing the steps herself.  
  
Lin nodded and said. "This is enough. We need speed and   
maneuverability more than numbers. Protect yourselves against the   
vampires. If we do not return in an hour's time you must consider   
the House lost. May the Goddess protect us all."  
  
Just as Lin was about to open the door, Li San suddenly   
remembered something. "The Guide...he said something else. He   
said that the witch was not one of the walking dead...that she could   
leave the House at any time..."  
  
"Huh?" asked Buri.  
  
Bura Shu just nodded. "No doubt it has been raising an army all   
this time."  
  
"Zombies" Lin grimaced, tightening the grip on her halberd.  
  
"Let me go first then," Buri requested, "it's time the undead   
learned to stay dead." With that Buri opened the door and they all   
entered, Li San closing the door behind them...  
  
...into darkness.  
  
Absolute darkness.   
  
But there were sounds. Shuffling, scraping...moaning.  
  
"Bura! Can you give us some light?" Lin hissed.   
  
Slowly a white light brightened around Bura Shu. Li San looked   
around. And suddenly she was staring straight into the face of her   
mother. Rotten, disfigured, gaunt and reaching for her... Li San   
screamed.  
  
Buri pushed her down and swung at the creature, decapitating it. It   
still walked, guided by some infernal mechanism. Buri picked Li   
San up by her collar, "Find your owl, girl, and get out of my way!"   
Li San nodded, eyes wide and left Buri, looking back only once to   
see her split the creature that was once her mother lengthwise in   
the dim half light provided by Bura Shu.  
  
Her mother was dead. She knew it before of course but before   
there was still hope that somehow she might have found a way   
out... There wasn't time for mourning when Li San escaped, and   
there wasn't time now. She reached at her belt for her own weapon,   
a pair of nunchaku made of iron and coated with a thin layer of   
silver. They had a dense diamond pattern etched in the middle of   
each small rod to provide a grip, and the chain that held the rods   
together swiveled at the junctions to allow for more movement.   
Nunchaku were effective weapons, particularly against opponents   
who favored blades, and they also allowed a knock out without   
serious injury if such an outcome was desired. They were not   
however, the best weapons with which to battle zombies.  
  
One grabbed her by the ankle, the skin, dry, cold. Not as startled   
this time, Li San had the presence of mind to know better than to   
merely flail at it with the nunchaku. Instead, she wrapped the chain   
of the weapon around the wrist of the creature and twisted   
forcefully, breaking the arm with a sickening crunch. Still the hand   
held fast to her ankle and pressed harder. Li San tried pulling it off   
with her fingers, but the zombie's hand wouldn't budge. It   
squeezed harder, causing Li San to gasp in pain. Not knowing what   
else to do she concentrated healing ki into her hand and touched   
her ankle to keep the damage to a minimum. Amazingly the hand   
disintegrated!  
  
"Bura Shu!" Li San yelled, "heal the zombies! It kills them!" She   
stood up and turned around to see if Bura had heard her, only to   
have her face come inches away from the blade of Lin's halberd.   
  
"Duck." Lin commanded and Li San obeyed. She looked behind   
her to see the head of another former Amazon fall. She knew it was   
still alive.   
  
Li's weapons were largely ceremonial, silver being the traditional   
metal of the healer. But silver was also an excellent conductor of ki.   
Li San looked at her nunchaku and, concentrating, covered it with   
her healing ki. Then she swung at the zombie towering over in an   
upwards diagonal strike as she stood up. The nunchaku ripped   
right through the torso and the zombie's body was reduced to   
halves twitching on the ground.  
  
"Where is the witch?" Lin growled behind Li San. She stabbed a   
zombie in the torso and pitch forked it over her head where it   
landed in Bura's grasp, promptly turning to dust from her ki. Lin   
and Bura stepped to either side of Li San, and the three formed a   
defensive triangle in the clearing they had created.  
  
"Where is Buri Lo?" Li San asked in return.  
  
"Arrgh! Independent wench! She's either killing zombies two at a   
time or she's dead!" Lin replied.   
  
"The witch is most likely in the main hall," Bura surmised, "These   
zombies are her army, and she wouldn't want to risk destroying   
them to attack an intruder."  
  
"So we're safe as long as were surrounded by undead?" Lin asked   
sardonically.  
  
"No...I suspect things are going to get quite a bit more   
complicated" Bura replied.  
  
Just then there was a tremendous cackling and a patina of blue fire   
spread across the ceiling. For a moment the three Amazons and the   
zombies were still and then...the zombies rose up in the   
air...levitating as if held up by strings.  
  
"Sweet and holy Goddess of eternity!" Lin cried out. And the   
zombies began their attack.  
  
They spun rapidly in the air and then swooped down upon them. Li   
San had to use every bit of her speed to evade the first and the fists   
of the unholy thing ripped gouges in the floor beside her. Covering   
her nunchaku with healing ki, Li San swung at the zombie...but it   
dodged!  
  
It flipped over her attack and changed directions in mid air, its foot   
now aimed directly for Li San's head. She barely found the time to   
dodge before the foot was already digging through the floorboards,   
splinters flying through the air. Acting quickly, Li San swung at   
the zombie's back. Stuck as it was in the floor, she hit it, and it was   
split in two from the ki. But the torso moved by itself now,   
spinning around at terrible speed and heading straight for Li San.   
Flinching, she held the nunchaku with both hands vertically out of   
pure instinct and by luck this caused both arms to be severed from   
the creature as they spun through the weapon.   
  
One of the hands found its way into the skull of another zombie   
and it exploded through, leaving only a reddish brown mass on the   
neck. This very zombie was heading straight for Lin, who was   
engaged with another. Li San pulled another nunchaku from her   
belt and using two weapons at once she made two scissor motions,   
first up and down, then left and right, reducing the zombie to a   
floating half of a torso.  
  
Lin dispatched her opponent similarly and turned around to see her   
would be attacker fall. "We're going to get killed if there's much   
more of this...Li San, Bura, start moving toward the main hall!   
Don't attack unless absolutely necessary!"  
  
Li San nodded and ran down the corridor dodging zombies and   
swinging at anything coming toward her with her nunchaku. Using   
two at once felt sloppy, but it couldn't be helped. The attacks were   
coming from all sides, and she needed a weapon for each hand to   
deal with them.  
  
Then suddenly there weren't any zombies. Or rather no zombies   
that were moving around. Blinking, Li San stopped. In the eerie   
blue light from the ceiling she could just make out a figure... "Buri   
Lo?"  
  
"I thought you might be troubled by these unholy bastards so I   
took care of them for you."  
  
"But...it was pitch black before! How did you...?"  
  
The silhouette that was Buri pointed to its head...Li San   
remembered the scar. "You think this is decoration girl? I'd have   
no depth perception, be useless in a fight if I hadn't trained my ears   
to see for me."   
  
Lin and Bura came up behind Li San, Bura offering her own light.   
This actually caused Buri to squint and Lin could see her face now,   
though the light was still quite dim. "We need to move" Lin   
pressed.  
  
"Yes, I don't know how long these demons will stay down..."Buri   
nodded.  
  
It was then that Li San noticed something. Disembodied, hands,   
feet, heads were floating...drifting up the walls so slowly as to be   
barely perceptible in the gloom. Suddenly Li San knew what was   
going to happen. "Buri, look out!" She cried, and all of the body   
parts zoomed toward Buri Lo.  
  
It was amazing how many the sword mistress was able to deflect   
with such a large weapon, but finally, a hand ripped through her   
knee, a foot through her shoulder, and finally, another fist blasted   
through her heart.  
  
Li San screamed and fell to her knees on the ground. Her eyes   
were wide and she tried to catch her breath as her heart beat   
against her chest. She had hardly known Buri but the pain she went   
through, the cruelty of her death...  
  
There was a short pause that seemed stuck in eternity, and then Lin   
spoke. "Everyone, get to a wall, now."  
  
Li San complied without question, numbly getting up and   
flattening her back to the wall on her right. She saw Lin follow her   
own order, taking the left wall and throwing down her halberd. She   
took two three-pointed fist daggers from her belt and equipped   
herself with them. An Amazon who had gone through the   
"Chestnuts in Fire" training could cause bloody death in seconds   
with such a weapon. She could also slice through arrows, bolts   
from crossbows, even bullets before they could reach her, provided   
she knew they were coming.  
  
Bura, who had been fighting hand-to-hand before, took position   
beside Li San and equipped herself with two shield glaives. At first   
glance, these were nothing more than small circular shields,   
roughly four hands across with a conical steel bolt in the center.   
However the edges of the shield were razor sharp and on inside of   
the starfish-like grip there was a trigger that released blades a hand   
long from each spoke. It was an expensive weapon, but its price   
matched its versatility. It could be used either for defense, or as a   
dangerous offensive blade that could reduce enemies to ribbons. It   
too was powerful against ranged attacks and in desperation the   
wielder could throw it at an opponent, causing perhaps injury or   
death to the unwary. Those skilled at glaiving could even cause   
them to return in a boomerang fashion. Those who were masters   
could catch the shield glaive again without loosing a limb.  
  
The shield glaive was a favorite weapon among the healers, but Li   
herself would never use something so deadly. She had trained in its   
use, as she had for most every weapon, but that only meant she   
could pick one up without injuring herself. She held a certain awe   
mixed with repulsion for it. She had so wanted to be a great   
warrior like Lin in her youth, but the violence just wasn't in her. In   
many respects she was the best healer of her generation. Li's   
control of ki rivaled even those of healers ten years older than her,   
but in martial arts she was woefully inadequate. She couldn't   
understand why Buri Lo, a seasoned veteran of battle, had died   
before her. It was unfair somehow, and Li was afraid the fates   
would realize their mistake and cut her thread next.   
  
Shaking, she put her nunchaku back into her belt and equipped her   
hand shields, smaller than Bura's shield glaives and with a layer of   
silver on the middle stud and handle as well as around the rim. Li   
was often mocked for using her weapons as mere show pieces, but   
now she counted the extravagance among her blessings. She took a   
deep calming breath and looked up, just as the first onslaught of   
disembodied limbs came rushing toward her.  
  
Her hands blurring in front of her, Li blocked the projectiles one   
after another, filling the metal of the hand shields with healing ki   
that reduced the zombie parts to dust. They came from everywhere,   
and they curved and twisted and corkscrewed. All through this Li   
San inched with Bura Shu closer and closer to the doorway of the   
main hall. The flak lessened and regained force, ebbed and flowed,   
like an eternal macabre sea of bones and sinew.   
  
Only Li San wasn't here anymore, she was six years old in   
projectile evasion training, surrounded by ten other students, each   
throwing painted pebbles at her as she was forced to dance around   
them. "The most important thing for an Amazon," she heard her   
instructor say, "Is to be observant. Speed matters for nothing if its   
possessor is blind. Mark the location of everything near you, in the   
air, on the ground, behind you, above you, AND in front. Use all of   
your senses, not just your sight. Hear and feel the wind rushing   
from each object, smell and taste the air for clues that something is   
near, finally do not neglect your unconscious mind, it sees far more   
than you can."  
  
"Yes, mother," Li San said and dodged and weaved and blocked a   
hundred body parts. Without thinking, she jumped away from the   
wall, into the center of the corridor. She felt the rush of air, smelled   
putrification, subconsciously made a route for her limbs to follow   
for maximum efficiency.  
  
"Li San! What are you doing! Get back by the wall" Lin screamed.  
  
...but Li was twelve years old. She was in her first fight with a boy.   
She just had her first period and as part of the ceremony she was to   
fight a male to prove to all her womanhood... and to keep from   
getting married. He was strong and talented for his age, many said   
it was a shame he was born male, but still he was no match for Li   
San. She played with him, slapping him with her palm instead of   
causing any real damage, milking her audience...  
  
More and more body parts aimed for the easy target of Li San, but   
she deflected or dodged all of them. She did flips and twists and   
jumps and twirls, and the floor and ceiling became just two more   
projectiles to avoid, gravity just another force to combat against.  
  
"What is she doing?" Lin asked.  
  
"She's gone mad." Bura replied, absently deflecting a skull with   
her shield glaive.  
  
..."Finish him!" Li's mother yelled from the audience and she   
knew she had put things off too long. The boy jumped high in the   
air to try a flying sidekick. Li crouched down low. She deflected   
the kick with her left arm as if it were nothing, and rising up she   
uppercut the boy in the chin, with so much momentum she did   
three backward flips and a mid air somersault as a follow through...  
  
"We should get to the main hall while we can," Lin suggested   
crossing warily over to the other side of the corridor to join Bura.   
Hardly any zombie parts attacked her now.  
  
"No. We'll be killed," Bura shook her head.  
  
"That was going to be the end result anyway!"   
  
"I know this. But she," Bura pointed to the blur of action that   
seemed to levitate off the ground in the middle of the corridor,   
"she still has hope. There is power in that."  
  
"If there were power in hope we wouldn't need war!" Lin   
contested, "Still, if we die first she won't stand a chance...   
Goddess! She's so weak, but she shows this strength now...I don't   
understand it!"  
  
"You always try to put labels on things, Lin. Things aren't always   
black or white."  
  
"Maybe not always, Bura, but they are right now." Lin punched a   
spinning leg out of the air and slammed it into the ground,   
"Black..." Lin ripped the limb to shreds with the fist daggers,   
"...and white."  
  
...Li San stood, looking at the crumpled form of the boy, smiling.   
She was a woman now, she had proven herself. The audience   
cheered, she could hear her mother's voice among them. She   
walked to the boy to offer a hand up to show that there was no ill   
will, but when the boy got up, he started crying. He was bleeding   
from the nose, some teeth were missing, and he was crying. "Stop   
it," Li commanded, but the boy just wailed louder. "Stop crying!"   
The tears and blood streamed down the boy's face...and a lump   
grew in Li San's throat. "I didn't hurt you that badly! Stop it!" Li   
San looked at the floor trying to blink away the tears that were   
forming in her own eyes. She saw something red beside her foot.   
The tip of the boy's tongue. The boy had his tongue between his   
teeth, he was trying so hard to hit Li, but then her fist came up... "I   
didn't do anything! Please! Stop crying, please!" and the tears   
were streaming from her own face now. Tears she swore never to   
shed. Tears that marked her in front of everyone as being weak.   
And now she screamed to herself as much as the boy: "STOP IT!   
STOP IT NOW! Stop...stop crying..." and she collapsed wailing on   
the ground, her words no more than incoherent blubbering.   
  
That was the last battle Li San ever won.  
  
Until now.   
  
The amount of flying limbs had decreased steadily and now there   
was nothing but silence and darkness.   
  
Li was six again, her ordeal with the painted rocks complete. Not a   
single pebble had left its mark. "How'd I do, Mommy?" she asked.  
  
"Very good, Li. You'll be a powerful warrior someday," her   
mother said smiling approvingly the way only mothers can.  
  
"Mommy, I love you" Li San said now, in the darkness standing on   
the dust that was all that remained of friends and family. She shed   
a single tear, and then fell unconscious on the floor.  
  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
"Wake up, Li, NOW!" Lin screamed, rousting Li San from her   
dreams. Li smiled. She must not be awake yet she realized. The   
great warrior Lin would never be shaking her like that. As if she   
were worried about her...as if there were something dangerous   
coming...as if everything she knew were about to collapse around   
her...  
  
Li San remembered.  
  
She leapt to her feet...and instantly regretted it. She was sore in   
almost every muscle and she felt nauseated, dizzy. Recent   
memories flashed in her minds eye: pools of blood and twisted   
bone that had once been human beings, teachers, sisters...mothers...   
And Buri Lo.   
  
Li San turned and retched uncontrollably, wishing she could purge   
herself of what she had seen as easily.  
  
"Li, we don't have time" Bura pressed, "Look!" the older healer   
pointed to the ground.  
  
The black dust was moving away from them, like the undertow of   
water before a massive wave. Li did not want to see what form a   
wave of the terrible powder would take. Nodding, she followed Lin   
and Bura as they walked the three or four horse-lengths to the   
doorway briskly but warily. Lin had retrieved her halberd, but Bura   
still wielded the shield-glaives. Li compromised, tossing her right   
hand-shield to the floor and pulling out a pair of nunchaku. She felt   
so weak though, she could barely lift the metal weapons, and her ki   
was so depleted she'd risk death if she tried to use it now. She had   
suspected it before...but now it was certain. There was simply no   
way she could survive this night.   
  
The thought was strangely comforting, and gave her a small   
measure of strength. If she was going to die, she would die as a   
warrior. She never would have thought it possible with her   
sensitivity, but these dead things without souls, these creatures that   
felt no pain or longing, they were giving her the chance. She   
would die with honor, fighting alongside the great hero Lin and the   
renowned healer Bura Shu.   
  
They reached the doorway just as a gust of wind moaned down the   
corridor. It picked up speed rustling Li's tattered cheongsam and   
almost knocking her over.   
  
"Hurry!" Lin yelled over the rising roar of wind and moved to   
open the door.  
  
"Wait!" Bura yelled back, "Stay close to me!"   
  
Li San moved as close to Bura as possible and Lin did the same.   
Abruptly the wind stopped, and there was a glowing bubble around   
them.  
  
"I...can't hold this for long." Bura said, straining "A minute at   
most. Open the door NOW."  
  
Lin did as her long time partner asked. Her arm eased through the   
force field and pushed the heavy door open with a low creak. And   
then her arm wasn't there anymore.  
  
A blinding blast of white light wracked against Bura's field, the   
awesome heat leaking through even that. Lin slowly withdrew the   
stump that was once her left arm. Warriors trained long and hard to   
combat against shock. With an adept enough healer, limbs could   
even be replaced provided they were reattached quickly enough.   
Lin did not have that option though. If she survived, she would   
never have a left hand again. She would be half the woman she   
was before.  
  
Li could read this in her idol's eyes as the warrior swallowed, her   
face ashen. She could almost feel the loss as if it had happened to   
her... "Lin," Li said, even as they moved into the main hallway and   
the funereal powder exploded in around them, "even with one hand,   
you are still the best warrior of all the Joketsuzoku. Whatever   
happens tonight, I will mark this as one of my proudest moments,   
because I'm fighting beside you."  
  
Lin nodded slowly, and as she took a breath she seemed to recover.   
"The powder might get in if it's slow enough!" Bura warned.  
  
"I'm on it!" Lin called back and pushed her right hand through the   
barrier. "Mouko Takabisha!" She yelled and a ball of hot air   
slammed into the powder blowing it away from Li, Bura and   
herself. She quickly pulled her hand back in. Just in time too, as   
another ribbon of white-hot ki slammed into the barrier. "It   
worked!" Lin exclaimed. "Elder Ko Lon's letters were right!"  
  
"I don't know...if I can withstand another blast...Does anyone see   
the owl?" Bura asked.  
  
Li's eyes saw only colors from Pao Da's ki attack. She was having   
trouble seeing much of anything, much less any owl. "It's too   
dark!" Li yelled.  
  
"I...can't do anything about that...the powder is probably...getting   
close again." Bura grimaced.  
  
"Close your eyes everyone!" Lin yelled.   
  
Li shut her eyes tight and she heard another "Mouko Takashiba!"   
from Lin and then, almost right on top of that a tremendous white   
glow and rush of heat.   
  
"Gahh!" Bura gasped, and when Li San opened her eyes the shield   
was gone. She tried to pierce through the darkness, to detect   
anything in the gloom, but even though the glowing blue patina   
was on the walls and ceiling of the main hallway as well, she   
couldn't detect any trace of the owl or elder Pao Da.   
  
Then she saw it. A glimmer of light in the air that quickly grew in   
intensity. But for a brief instant, Li could tell where it came from.   
The owl.  
  
A fraction of a second and the light was too bright to look at   
directly... and it was almost on top of them.   
  
Li San didn't think. There was no time to think. She only screamed   
the first thing that came into her head, and it was only by accident   
the thing she screamed was the name "SHA RESU!"  
  
And then everything went black.  
  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
There were no sounds, feelings, smells, or tastes. Only nothing.  
  
And then a voice, only it was not a voice... ~You know my mortal   
name. You recall a past long burned away in the slow fires of time.   
Who are you who does such a thing?~  
  
~I am Li San.~  
  
~Really? There was a time, you know, when that name meant   
something.~  
  
~I don't understand. Am I dead? What is this place?~  
  
~There is tremendous power in a name. Even if someone is   
unaware of the meaning, they can be affected by it. I am more   
sensitive to its power than most, perhaps, but it is not uncommon.   
Just the fact that you know my name and I happen to value the   
meaning of yours is enough reason for me to spare you. If you had   
been named something else, you might already be dead.~  
  
~But...my friends...~ Li felt a tremendous sadness wash over her, a   
sadness mixed with a tinge of anger, and finally a feeling of dark   
apathy.  
  
~They will die. You will die too at some point. Does it really   
matter how?~  
  
Li found herself unwillingly stymied by the question. What   
difference did it really make if she died now or later? Would she   
be more happy...less? How could she know?  
  
~Let me answer the question for you, since you seem unable to   
answer it yourself. It doesn't matter how you die. All that matters   
is how you live. Have you striven to make the most out of your life   
at every opportunity? Have you shown courage, honor, and dignity   
when you could have run away, shirked responsibility, and insulted   
another? Have you made the most out of your life? If you   
have...then you need not fear death. But then why would you wish   
for it?~  
  
Li again felt the wave of sadness and anger course through her.   
~You fought to defeat the oppressive wizards when you were alive,   
why are you using magic against us now?~  
  
~Yes I helped defeat the wizards. To do that, I had to give my soul   
to the demon of Jusenkyo. I was given awesome magic to defeat   
the wizards, and when I was successful I was torn from life and   
placed in an all consuming flame of heat and cold and pain...I   
could not stand it...but I had to. After an eternity I was given   
release, only in the body of an owl, the very form I was cursed   
with by the wizards. Still, I was free from pain, I was alive! But   
one splash with hot water and it all went away. I was relegated to a   
dark corner, only able to see the life of my victim as if from far   
away...the pain was gone but the isolation was just as bad. I   
learned to push my victim toward cold water, to keep him from   
using an umbrella, from remembering to worry about the curse. It   
was only after my victim died, unable to defend himself after hot   
water splashed me, that I realized I had become the very thing that   
I hated. But after only a few moments in the hell of Jusenkyo...I   
knew that I didn't care. That was one thousand five hundred fifty   
years ago...two hundred years after I sacrificed my soul and just   
before the creation of Nyannichuan. My only goal since then is   
staying in the living world. I don't care about you or your friends.   
In fact, I think its only fair that you should suffer a bit before you   
fade off into sweet oblivion.~  
  
~But, you can't mean that! You must still care...somewhere within   
you!~  
  
~Do you know how I got cursed with the form of an owl?~  
  
~You wouldn't tell your captors the names of your comrades...~  
  
~Yes, someone has done well to keep the stories alive I see. All I   
had to do was give them a name. Just one name, and they might   
never have cursed me and I might not be here about to kill your   
friends. But I never told them anything. They kept asking who, and   
I kept saying that I didn't know. They tortured me, used magic to   
cause me pain, and finally they turned me into an owl. They were   
tired of asking "who"... they wanted me to ask it for awhile. I was   
cursed for eternity because I cared.~  
  
~But you defeated the Wizards! You might not have been able to if   
you hadn't done that!~  
  
~When I was released from Jusenkyo into the body of an owl I   
flew around and discovered as much as I could about the world.   
Do you know what I found? I found a government ten times more   
oppressive and ruthless than that of the wizards I had defeated! It   
doesn't pay to care. Not if you're immortal.~  
  
~But you do care. You're so sad...~ Li realized as she said it   
something that she knew only on a subconscious level if at all. The   
sadness, the anger, the apathy...they weren't her emotions but those   
of Sha Resu!  
  
~You're an empath? Of course! No wonder you were able to   
connect with me! I thought you were using a talisman or spell...~  
  
~An empath?~  
  
~Yes you can read the emotions of other people...You were not   
aware of this?~  
  
Suddenly Li San's life shifted into focus. That boy...it was his pain   
she was feeling! And ever since then...not being able to cause   
pain ...actually feeling good sometimes when she lost a match...all   
she had attributed to weakness, was actually her greatest strength!  
  
~Yes. I do care. If you can read emotions then I cannot lie to you   
or myself. I care, but I do what I must to continue living. To stay   
away from the Hell of Jusenkyo.~  
  
~Then...why not help me? Maybe we can find some way to destroy   
the demon of Jusenkyo and you won't have to go back again!~  
  
~The demon of Jusenkyo cannot be destroyed. Only changed into a   
different form of evil...still I think I will help you.~  
  
~Why?~  
  
~Because I want to use you. Because I think through you, I may be   
able to live again. Because Pao Da bores me with her goals of   
domination and can offer me only a meager existence at best. In   
her mind she is already dead. She has lived for hundreds of years,   
but has done nothing. Now she tries to make up for it, but she has   
no imagination. No passion. No soul. Helping you would be much   
more beneficial to me. You must understand, though, there will be   
some sacrifice on your part.~  
  
~What kind of sacrifice?~  
  
~I must become your familiar. I must see through your eyes, and   
you through mine. If you should die before the owl that holds me   
here, then you will take my place in Jusenkyo for all eternity.~  
  
~There isn't any other way?~  
  
~Yes there is. There are many ways I could help you that wouldn't   
require such a sacrifice. But this is moot. I will only help on this   
condition, and without my help you will die. Perhaps you might   
prefer that to what I'm offering though, and so I give you the   
choice.~  
  
~Okay. I accept...but I have one condition of my own.~  
  
~And what is that?~  
  
~Your name...Sha Resu, what does it mean?~  
  
Li could feel the spirit smiling, ~You really have no   
idea what you're getting into, do you...~  
  
And suddenly, Li was scared.  
  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
She felt herself falling and instinctually she flapped her...wings?   
She was an owl! There was a bright band of energy in front of her,   
moving inexorably toward three humanoid figures...She had   
switched bodies with Sha Resu.  
  
Trusting to instincts that were not her own, she flew toward her   
human body and her friends hoping that maybe somehow she   
could save them... but Sha was already moving lightening quick,   
pushing Bura and Lin out of the way of the very attack he himself   
had created.   
  
Sha Resu, pointed at Li. "That's it!" Sha yelled, "that's what's   
been attacking us! Kill it!"  
  
Li San, saw Lin getting up, saw her take some throwing stars out   
of her belt with her free hand, and promptly turned around to fly   
the other way. Li San had played right into Sha Resu's hands! If   
she died as an owl before her human body died, she'd be trapped in   
Jusenkyo forever, and Sha would be free! He hadn't even lied to   
her. He had told the truth the whole time, but Li never realized he   
would do this. A metal throwing star almost hit her. Without her   
mother's training, Li San would have been killed instantly. As it   
was, her senses were so warped as an owl she almost didn't dodge   
it anyway.  
  
Li San angled to land on one of the benches arranged in rows in the   
main hall. The back of the bench offered some measure of   
protection from Lin's attacks and she could peek out from the side   
to see what was going on. Looking now she saw things weren't   
going well.   
  
Bura Shu had collapsed to the ground gasping for air. A tendril of   
smoky black powder drifted to the healer's prone form. The   
powder thickened and Bura was only able to give a short yelp of   
surprise before she was completely enveloped in the black stuff.  
  
Li San could feel the dust entering Bura's orifices, filling her lungs,   
stomach, bowels...she wanted to scream but all she could do was   
make a strangled "Hu" sound... Then it was over.  
  
Lin turned to see her partner engulfed in black death. She placed a   
firm hand on Sha's shoulder. "Save her," she commanded. Only Li   
San knew she was already dead.  
  
Sha looked over in Li's direction, then at Lin, then at Bura, and   
finally at the center of the black mass.   
  
"Do you hear me? Save her, or I'll kill you where you stand!" In a   
second, Lin had a fist dagger on her good hand and against the   
neck of Sha's stolen body.  
  
Li could see Sha's eyes widen even as far away as she was and in   
the dark. Truly if she hadn't been an owl she would have had the   
same reaction. This was her idol, threatening to kill someone she   
thought was Li herself. If she did though, Li wouldn't be forced   
into Jusenkyo...but then she'd spend the rest of her days as an owl...  
  
Sha slowly placed a hand on Lin's wrist to say he would save Bura.   
Then he raised an arm and pointed at the black mass with an index   
finger. "It is time for you to die, you meddlesome old hag!" And in   
an instant the black dust fell to the floor, leaving elder Pao Da...   
frightened and exposed.   
  
And then a beam of white energy hit and Pao Da exploded into a   
wide splash of blood and tissue fragments.  
  
The dust no longer covered Bura, and Lin could see what Li San   
already knew. Lin clenched her fist, and as Sha turned his stolen   
head back toward Lin the fist met sharply with the temple. "You   
aren't Li San." Lin said over the fallen form, and sat beside the   
body of Bura Shu.  
  
Li could feel the darkness now. Not just from the blue patina of the   
walls and ceiling dissipating into nothing, but also from Lin. Li felt   
tired, depressed, and angry to such a great degree she knew all of it   
couldn't be from herself. Still she had a hard time figuring out   
where her feelings ended and Lin's began. Before she knew of   
being an empath, she would have attributed it to weakness, or   
perhaps an imagination that was a little TOO good. But couldn't   
that still be it? Could she really trust anything that Sha Resu said?   
  
But Lin had to be the cause of the dark, unclean, terrible feeling Li   
had. Because Li wanted so much to be relieved, to cheer that the   
House was finally clear even despite the awful casualties. She   
certainly did not want to feel such tremendous guilt.  
  
Li flew to her body. She had inserted herself into people's dreams   
enough in the past to combat possession that it was easy enough   
for her to return to her body. She opened her eyes and took a   
breath. "Lin," She said, "This is not your fault."  
  
"I know its not my fault!" Lin snapped. "It was Elder Pao Da's   
fault. Or maybe Jusenkyo's fault. Maybe it's your fault, Li San.   
Maybe you've just been deceiving me all this time...But I should   
have seen it. I should have been able to do something..."  
  
"There was nothing you could do..."  
  
"You're trying to make me feel better?" Lin seethed, "If you want   
to make me feel better, TELL me I could have done something,   
TELL me I was stupid, or that I wasn't paying attention, or that I   
should have been less trusting...Don't you DARE tell me there was   
nothing I could have done...that I was helpless...that I'm still   
helpless." Lin was crying now and so was Li.  
  
"I don't think you're helpless..." Li tried.  
  
Lin features hardened into a cold mask. "You're a witch. I can't   
trust you anymore than I could comfortably spit out a rat."   
  
The feelings of fear and isolation were decidedly Li's own. It only   
just now dawned on her that she was a witch. If her familiar died,   
maybe she could return to normal, but she would probably never   
be accepted back into Amazon society. Simply being a witch was a   
crime punishable by death, and even if somehow she convinced   
everyone that it was okay, and that she wasn't evil and they   
accepted her back...somehow she felt like she had already lost   
something irretrievable, that her ties to her Amazon sisters were   
now completely severed and that they would never be mended.   
"I'm sorry." Li spoke softly through her sobs. "It was the only way   
I knew we could be saved..."  
  
Lin closed her eyes. "By the Goddess! Bura, you were right. I   
admit it! But why couldn't you be wrong? Why can't things be   
simple? Black and White...why does everything have to be gray?   
Why do there have to be evil elders...good witches...Why can't you   
be here now?" Lin opened her eyes. She crouched over Bura and   
lifted her dead friend's left arm into the air. Then she put Bura's   
hand in her mouth and held the arm up with her teeth.  
  
"Lin, what are you doing?" Li San asked.  
  
Lin made no sound in response. She simply used a fist-dagger to   
cut off Bura's arm at a certain spot on the fore arm. It was a clean   
cut. Amazing in itself, really. Then Lin held it by its base and   
placed it on the stump of her left arm. It was an almost perfect   
match. "Heal me." Lin commanded.  
  
"I...I can't!" Li protested.  
  
"Yes you can! You're a witch you can do almost anything! Hurry   
up before I realize what I'm doing."  
  
Li San could feel such hope and not a small amount of craziness   
coming from Lin that she nodded. "Okay...I'll try." She placed her   
hands on Li's stump and Bura's arm and concentrated. Even with   
someone's own arm this was extremely difficult. Blood vessels had   
to be matched, nerve ending rejoined, muscle tissue healed in just   
the correct way, bone material reknitted. Each process had to be   
handled on its own and could take weeks, even months to complete.   
Only for some reason all of this was happening on its own. All Li   
was doing was supplying ki. It was as if...  
  
It was as if the arm WANTED to join with Lin.  
  
A mere five minutes after Li started, Lin was flexing Bura's hand.   
It was odd to see such a thin hand and wrist on such a large arm.   
The skin was milky white to Lin's tanned bronze.   
  
To use another's organs for any purpose without the owner's   
express consent was of course illegal in Nyuuchezutswun. In fact, it too   
was punishable by death. Necromancy was simply too dangerous.   
The souls of the dead, even the recently so, were often ruthless in   
their quest for life, or a more restful death. Bring one person back   
to life, and there would likely be twenty sent to the grave before   
the reborn finished exacting vengeance for their half existence. Lin   
knew as well as Li San that Bura had become a part of Lin   
spiritually as well as physically. Maybe it would turn out alright.   
Then again maybe Lin would go mad from an internal power   
struggle and kill anyone near her out of reflex.  
  
"Now you can't trust me either." Lin said. "Which means of course   
we're stuck with each other."  
  
Li nodded and swallowed.   
  
"Come, we must tell the villagers their House is safe." Lin said,   
standing. They both knew it wasn't their village any more. "You   
mind giving some light?"  
  
Li made her hand glow so they could see their way out of the   
building. They walked steadily down the corridor they had fought   
so hard to get through. In no time they were at the door to the   
outside, and who knew what lay beyond. Li and Lin both pushed   
against the double doors, and when the villagers saw them there   
was a massive cheer.  
  
"The House is clear!" Lin called out. "Elder Pao Da is dead. So are   
Buri Lo and Bura Shu. You sleep with their bodies tonight, but you   
shall at least wake up on the morrow."  
  
"Is the witch destroyed?" someone asked.  
  
"Are you sure it's safe?"   
  
"What if the vampires use fire or try to ram down the walls?"  
  
"A second barrier extends beyond the walls of the House." Lin   
responded. "Just be sure not to invite any vampires or curse   
victims inside."  
  
"What about the owl? The familiar...Is it dead?"  
  
At that very moment Li heard a flap of wings and felt the talons of   
Sha Resu's owl form puncture flesh as they wrapped around her   
right collar bone. She was in pain, but it was her own pain and she   
could deal with it.  
  
~Do not think that this is over, Li,~ Sha's words came to Li San, ~I   
will not give up. It is only a matter of time, and I have more   
patience than you can possibly imagine.~  
  
"It's her!"  
  
"She's the witch!"  
  
Li San could say nothing that would be believed. She simply   
walked down the steps into the crowd, which parted wide to let her   
through.   
  
Lin paused on the veranda. "By Amazon law, we should both die. I   
ask though that you wait until a time of peace to exact the   
punishment. For now we will resign ourselves to darkness." And   
with that, Lin followed Li San through the crowd and into the night.  
  
~Do you see? Do you see how they judge first and think later?   
That is the nature of human thought, And it will never be changed.   
Not by anything you can do.~  
  
"Shut up." Li commanded her familiar. "Unless you'd like me to   
kill myself? Maybe you'd like to go back to your friend the   
demon?"  
  
Only Li's own thoughts filled her mind, but she could feel the fear,   
the hatred, the sadness. "You shouldn't have let Bura die. You   
were supposed to protect both of them, that was the deal. But you   
wanted my body. You couldn't wait. Where was your patience   
then?" Fear and rage coursed through Li, but she knew now that   
they weren't her feelings, at least not entirely. She continued   
speaking with increased confidence. "I fought my way through the   
House of Elders; I have faced my fears and conquered them. I   
made a sacrifice and I upheld my word. You have done nothing but   
kill, and you went against our agreement. I don't have to do   
anything you say."  
  
There was a feeling of cold calm and the owl perched on Li's   
shoulder nodded. ~You will though...You will.~ And with that the   
owl flew off into the night.   
  
Li was now away from the crowd and approaching the woods,   
heading toward Jusenkyo. She didn't know where else to go.   
Several homes still had torches burning outside them and smoke   
coming out of their chimneys...homes that had Jusenkyo cursed   
inside. They would probably be gone by tomorrow.   
  
A horse came running toward Li at a mad gallop, its eyes wide   
with fright. It was a copper colored stallion. Its coat shown in the   
torchlight as it passed Li. It was Ranma, Gurei's horse. Gurei   
hadn't made it.   
  
Li dropped to her knees and the tears started coming again. She   
didn't try and stop them this time. She wasn't an Amazon anymore   
anyway. Was she weak? Was she cut out to be a warrior? Those   
questions seemed so inane now. So stupid. She would survive or   
she would die. It didn't matter. Everything she had loved was gone.   
Except...  
  
Lin placed a strong hand on Li's shoulder. "Gurei helped us...He   
was a good man, I wish I had known him better. But we have to   
see if there's anything we can do to stop the vampires. We have to   
go to Jusenkyo."  
  
"I wonder what Bura would have thought of that." Li got to her   
feet, wiping the moisture from her face.   
  
Lin's face held a distant expression. "It was Bura who suggested   
it," she said.  
  
After an uneasy silence they both just started walking. It was   
strange, Li noted, but somehow the thirty-year-old Lin had stopped   
being an idol, a woman almost twice her age, or even a warrior,   
and had become her friend. Perhaps it was the fear they both now   
held. That they would become as vile as the vampires themselves.   
  
They were a witch and a necromancer, fighting against an army of   
vampires each ten times stronger than themselves. The odds were   
hardly in their favor. Still, Li San felt a little better about their   
chances. "Lin?" Li asked, remembering her conversation with Sha   
Resu.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"I was just wondering...what does your name mean?"  
  
"Hmm? Lin...doesn't mean anything...Well I...I suppose there's no   
reason not to tell you now...It's short for Lin To."  
  
"Lin To?"  
  
"The elders name...used to name children after English words. It's a   
tradition started some 300 years ago when an English woman   
supposedly saved the village. My parents were poor and they made   
clothing for a living...My name means lint. That stuff that gathers   
in corners and crevasses where clothing is stored. Once I found out   
what it meant I didn't care for it much."  
  
"I don't know...I think it's kind of neat. I mean, you can't ever get   
rid of lint..."  
  
Lin smiled sadly and nodded. "Yes...and as long as there is reason   
there is always hope."  
  
"I don't understand."  
  
"That is your name. Reason."  
  
"My name means...reason?" Sha Rezu's statement made sense now.   
There was a time, he had said, when reason had meant something.   
But Sha was wrong, Li San decided. Reason still meant something,   
even in all this chaos. Li nodded "My mother..."   
  
"Your mother was an amazing woman. I am glad to have known   
her."  
  
Her mother had told Li many times she was destined for great   
things. After that fight with the boy, she had stopped believing. Li   
looked up at the blackness of the sky as she walked. She could   
already feel the hunger and pain from the spirits of Jusenkyo as   
they drifted free from their prisons. She would find a way to stop   
them. Her mother was dead now, and all she had left from her was   
her memories and her name. No matter what happened Li decided   
she would do her best to honor both.   
  
~~~~~*~~~~~  
  
Have you seen my cat?  
It turned into a bat!  
Have you seen my dog?  
It turned into a hog!  
Have you seen my dad?  
He turned into a cad!  
Have you seen my mommy?  
She turned into a zombie!  
Let's hold hands and pray.  
Now let's run away!  
  
-Amazon nursery rhyme  
  
~~~~~[END]~~~~~  
  
Thanks to Fall-away for his comments in .irc and  
to everyone who gave reviews here. You all shall   
be spared in the coming apocalypse:-)  
  
Any feedback greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading! 


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